


measures by heartbeats

by wordstruck



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Musicians, Angst, BBOI2018, Big Bang!!! on Ice, M/M, Mila Babicheva/Sara Crispino - mentioned, Victor Nikiforov/Katsuki Yuuri - mentioned, bigbangonice2018, major angst, your lie in april au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 17:56:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13722996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordstruck/pseuds/wordstruck
Summary: The performance ends as it began: Plisetsky draws out the last note, high and tremulous; withdraws his bow to his side. Gives a perfunctory bow. Exits the stage.Leaves the hush of a dazed and astounded audience in his wake.Leaves Otabek sitting there, breathless, and thinking:I want to play with this boy.Or, an university AU with pianist!Otabek and violinist!Yuri, inspired by Your Lie In April.





	1. composition

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I'd like to inform all readers to **ensure you read the notes before each chapter** , because they will be important to the story. I want to stress that I used the _Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings_ tag for pertinent reasons -- in particular, that I didn't want readers who haven't watched Your Lie In April to be spoiled, and because I didn't want to spoil the fic itself as well. If you haven't watched the series and don't want to be spoiled for what happens, you may not want to continue with this fic; it doesn't follow the plot precisely, but it retains many of the major components.
> 
> The author's notes will also include links to references for songs used throughout the fic, although these will also be linked within the text itself.
> 
> This is one of the longest fics I've written; I'm not usually one for pieces that aren't one-shots or aren't longer than 7k. It's mostly un-beta'd, so any mistakes or inconsistencies are my own. This fic has taken a long time and a lot of effort, and I sincerely hope that it resonates with whoever reads it. It's been a difficult story to write, but I like to think it's worth it.
> 
> Special shout-out to my artist [Ren](https://twitter.com/rawlaroone), who picked my piece despite knowing it would hurt her XD And to the FWSG, who put up with my griping and saw me through all my writing sprints and worrying over the plot. And to Haeden, zvezdochko, my sunshine.
> 
> Thank you for picking up this fic, and I hope you enjoy it ❤︎

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Otabek sees Yuri is on stage, like starshine under the lights. The first time Otabek _meets_ Yuri is outside a practice room, on another afternoon.
> 
> The first time Otabek plays with Yuri, piano and violin, it is breathtaking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No content warnings for this chapter yet.
> 
> The song Yuri plays on stage is a violin cover of _On Love: Agape_ , his short program song. I used two different references - [here](https://youtu.be/J4fQHt4iPJQ) and [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj8wUQct9Ak) \- although neither are a solo violin performance.
> 
> The song Yuri and Otabek perform is the _Samarkand Overture_ , Otabek's short program song. The piano arrangement can be referenced [here](https://youtu.be/0waWI_IeKHE?list=PL1gGHHQWn-NWwAMM7hcZ0e-r3YwuIINpM); in the fic, it starts out at 3/4 speed (you can use YouTube's settings to change this) then reverts to original speed (the "sped up" version in the fic) at around 0:37-0:38.
> 
>  _Allegro Appassionato_ here is the event name of the student showcase at the end of the year.

 

 

 

 

 fic banner by [laroone](http://laroone.tumblr.com/)

 

* * *

 

 

 

It is a Tuesday afternoon, bright and sunny. The curtains are pulled back, the windows opened to let in the breeze. There is a piano off in a corner, and a boy sitting on the bench. There is another boy with hair like sunshine.

There is a melody in the air, resonant and beautiful.

 

There is a story.

 

The beginning of a semester at university is always chaotic, as Otabek’s learned. There are the students chasing down professors to beg admission into their class; there are posters and flyers piling up on the display boards and hallways. August is always pleasant -- not too cold, not too grey -- and Otabek likes the atmosphere as school starts: bright, refreshed.

He meets JJ in his dorm room later that afternoon, grinning as his friend frets about how he’ll fit all his clothes into the tiny closet, making light conversation about their respective breaks. JJ invites Otabek to dinner with him and his girlfriend, Isabella; says Leo might catch up.

They go for burgers and milkshakes, and later Leo wrangles them into some karaoke even if it’s literally their _first day back_ and the semester hasn’t even officially started. But JJ’s never one to turn down the opportunity to sing, and both he and Otabek have to book it back to campus to make it to their dorms before curfew.

It earns them a stern look from the security guard, but he lets them go.

The colleges gradually fill up as people return and extra-curricular events are announced. The halls and quads swarm with students advertising organizations, orientations, workshops. Once, Otabek spots JJ standing on a bench, waving a sign announcing the theater department’s first minor show of the semester. Attending an arts university means something is always going on -- a fashion show, a small theater performance, open mic night.

The poster for the university-wide opening showcase goes up the next day.

 

 **king_jj** > _Are you coming? Good lineup this year_  
**dj.altin** < _showcase? yeah, sure_  
**king_jj** > _Isabella’s getting the tickets!!_

 

Friday night rolls around, and Otabek extracts himself from organizing his course materials to get ready.

He meets JJ and Isabella at the auditorium, where they peek backstage to wish Leo a good performance. They pick up programs from the volunteer staff outside, then shuffle into the lobby.

Otabek hasn’t chanced this year’s showcase, preferring to watch. The acts are mostly upperclassmen who use the showcase as a warmup for the semester, to try new sounds or display summer projects. The lobby outside the auditorium is filled with display stands showcasing different visual pieces; Otabek spots a collage of Phichit Chulanont’s photography. There’s an entire row of panels dedicated to Chris Giacometti’s sketches for a potential fashion collection.

Inside the auditorium, they catch the tail end of Victor Nikiforov’s performance of _Stammi Vicino,_ accompanied by his boyfriend, Katsuki Yuuri _._ It’s flawless as always, brimming with emotion, and the audience explodes in applause almost before he’s finished. Nikiforov bows, shakes his hair out of his eyes (and turns to blow a kiss at Katsuki, who fidgets in front of the piano and flushes pink to his ears).

“This is interesting,” JJ says beside him, where he’s reading the program.

“Hm?” Otabek says, only half-listening.

“There’s a freshman in this show,” JJ tells him, and it doesn’t register with Otabek until Isabella’s leaning in to check the program for herself.

“A freshman?” she asks, surprised.

“Well, a sophomore now,” JJ corrects, pointing at the last spot in the roster of performers. Otabek squints and reads the name.

_Yuri Plisetsky._

_Oh._ Now that _is_ interesting. Otabek knows Plisetsky by reputation, the freshman violin prodigy that had even Director Yakov grudgingly admitting to his talent. He’s never heard him play, however, and freshmen generally don’t perform in the opening showcase, since sign-ups are at the start of the summer break. Not even JJ had been plucky enough to go up in front of the whole school straight out of his first year.

“Ah,” Isabella says, eyes lighting up in recognition. “He’s the one they’re calling the next Victor Nikiforov.”

Otabek almost snorts. Not that he doubts the capabilities of someone he’s never met, but he’s never thought it a compliment to be the next of someone else.

The hush that falls over the audience makes them look up, and -- speak of the devil. Otabek can’t see too clearly from here in the back, even if the auditorium is small, but he can make out strict posture and a slim build. Blonde hair that, under the stage lights, looks like starlight.

The violinist takes his place at the center of the stage.

 _No accompanist,_ Otabek realizes with surprise.

Plisetsky doesn’t bow, or make any other gesture to preempt his performance. He simply tucks his violin under his chin, brings the bow to the strings. There is the space of a breath.

And then he plays.

 

With no piano in tandem, the sound of the violin reverberates throughout the room, high and clear and haunting. The piece is -- chilling, poignant; a resonance in their bones. _On Love: Agape;_ Otabek knows it, knows the piece is supposed to be [a medley of string instruments](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4fQHt4iPJQ). But Plisetsky has [adapted it astonishingly to just his sole violin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj8wUQct9Ak), and--

When Victor Nikiforov plays, the audience is alive with sound, often moved to tears. Otabek himself has made people cheer, elicited admiring applause. But Otabek feels that when this boy plays, the world holds its breath, and listens in stunned silence.

The way he is: controlled, intense; all precision and technique. Like the fine edge of a dagger.

Beside him, JJ is quiet, fixated. Isabella has her hands pressed to her mouth in awe. And Otabek -- Otabek looks at the boy on stage, hears the clarity of the music, feels the strength of every note. Like the song is a challenge.

_(Listen to me.)_

The performance ends as it began: Plisetsky draws out the last note, high and tremulous; withdraws his bow to his side. Gives a perfunctory bow. Exits the stage.

Leaves the hush of a dazed and astounded audience in his wake.

Leaves Otabek sitting there, breathless, and thinking: _I want to play with this boy._

 

One thing more about Yuri Plisetsky’s performance: it lingers.

 

Otabek finds Mila and asks if she knows anything about Plisetsky, because Mila is dating Sara Crispino and Sara knows everything. (He would go to Sara himself, but quite frankly, she terrifies him.) As it turns out, Mila doesn’t just know _about_ Plisetsky -- she knows him, personally. Apparently they’d grown up in the same neighborhood.

“Like a kid brother,” she says, with a smile that tells Otabek that Plisetsky absolutely hates being called that, and Mila does it anyway at every opportunity.

“So what’s he like as a musician?”

They’re in a studio in the visual arts department, the smell of paint and fixative in the air. Mila hums thoughtfully from where she’s got her fingers splotched and coated in paint, apparently trying a new technique for a personal project.

“Difficult,” she says finally, reaching out to smudge some color on her canvas.

Otabek raises one eyebrow. Mila squints at her canvas some more before leaning back with a sigh.

“Difficult,” she says again, rubbing absently at her cheek and leaving a smear of brown. “Difficult to handle, difficult to play with -- he doesn’t get on with accompanists. Terrifyingly talented, though.”

Otabek mulls that over. “But why? The lack of accompanist.” Mila looks at him, perplexed. “I mean, if he’s this talented, shouldn’t people _want_ to play with him? There’s plenty of students available.”

Mila’s face scrunches up. “Too much of a perfectionist.”

“Ah.” Otabek thinks back to the absolute precision of Plisetsky’s performance. It would make sense.

“Any reason you’re asking?” Mila flicks her gaze up at him, eyebrows raised. Something in her expression tells Otabek she has a guess, and she might be right.

“Just curious,” he deflects. Mila frowns up at him for a moment, then reaches up. She pokes some green on his nose, grinning when Otabek flinches back.

“Be careful,” she tells him simply, turning back to her painting.

 

It doesn’t occur to Otabek to ask why she’d said that, of all things; he doesn’t even think it odd until much later. He chalks it up to Plisetsky’s reputation, the alleged struggles of working with him, and Otabek’s own personality quirks.

It’s a good thing Otabek isn’t about to let any of that deter him.

 

The semester begins in earnest; class requirements start pouring in, papers and quizzes and practice pieces. JJ is immersed in Shakespeare dissections and set design classes; Isabella gets swamped by literary theories and readings. As a junior, Otabek’s composition and practical classes take up a bulk of his schedule, the major projects looming in the distance.

Plisetsky and his music get shunted to the back of his mind, temporarily forgotten as Otabek’s days blur with music history and classical style analyses and the assigned piece he has to learn for practicals.

In the performing arts buildings, it’s difficult to find a practice room that isn’t in use or already reserved, but Otabek chances it. He lucks out in the second floor of the general education department; there’s an empty room at the end of the corridor. There’s a scattering of music stands at the back; the heavy red curtains are drawn shut. Otabek quickly logs himself into the sheet outside the door and steps inside.

The piano is off in one corner. Otabek sets his things down on the floor and takes a seat.

He’s supposed to be rehearsing a Chopin piece, but the assigned sheet music stays tucked in his bag. Instead, Otabek stares at the piano keys while the beginnings of a melody play in his head. It’s a fragment he’s had in mind for a while now, persisting even if he’s still uncertain how to continue it. It’s far different from his usual sound; a soft, sweet cadence. Evocative, repetitive.

He starts to play the up-down sequence, hoping it’ll help him think.

A little later and the sound of something heavy (and possibly wooden) crashing to the ground jolts him out of his reverie. Otabek looks up and around, startled, and finds that Yuri Plisetsky is standing in the doorway of the practice room.

A moment later and it hits him that _Yuri Plisetsky_ has been standing in the doorway of his practice room and _watching him play._

Otabek half-stands, ready to -- to what? Defend his music? Ask what’s going on? But then Plisetsky fixes him with a _look_ that prompts Otabek to sit back down.

There is a current of something like static in the air.

 _(Perhaps this is what it feels to stand at the edge of a cliff,_ Otabek thinks, and almost laughs.)

 

 

It’s completely by accident that Yuri’s wandered into the practice room at the same time; he hadn’t checked to see if anyone had signed for it beforehand, too fixated on the beginnings of a melody in his head. He actually flinches back when he opens the door and realizes someone’s already there, and he’s about to leave when--

He doesn’t know who’s playing, has never encountered them before, not in the year he’s been here. But Yuri watches this boy at the piano, and it’s -- mesmerizing, almost.

A light, casual sound; a candid melody. The simplicity with which the person plays is so sharply unlike Yuri’s control and precision. There’s an easy grace to his movements that suits the music he’s playing. And the song feels unpolished but it also feels so -- full.

Yuri stands there, watches and listens, quiet. Feels the song creep between his ribs and settle in his chest, like a warmth.

He hasn’t known music like this.

The crash from somewhere outside the room snaps both of them out of their daze. The pianist looks up, startled, and then his eyes widen further when he recognizes Yuri standing at the door. The man half-rises, but Yuri pins him with a _look_ and he sits back down.

Pursing his lips, Yuri recovers himself. Steadies his breath.

Tells the boy, “keep playing.”

 

 

It surprises Otabek, it does. But the stubborn look on Plisetsky’s face also almost makes him laugh.

He turns back to the piano. Plisetsky steps into the room. Otabek lifts his fingers to the keys.

“As you wish.”

 

Afterwards, Otabek doesn’t know how long he’d played, how many small melodies he'd gone through; how long Plisetsky had stood there and listened. A sudden burst of chatter from outside startles them both; a flush blooms high on Plisetsky’s cheeks. He ducks his head, fiddles with the strap of his bag.

“I should -- let you practice,” he says stiltedly. Before Otabek can reply, Plisetsky’s turned on his heel and left the room, door swinging shut behind him.

 

The incident nags at Otabek, who turns the events over and over in his mind. It still feels like it didn’t quite happen -- that he’d been playing in the practice room (and a half-formed fragment of original music, at that), and that Yuri Plisetsky had stood there, listening -- that Plisetsky had been _caught_ by whatever he was playing.

It feels surreal. Otabek’s half-convinced he might have hallucinated.

The next day finds him seeking out the room again, to put in some more practice time. And then he reaches the second floor, and lo and behold Plisetsky himself is standing outside the door. He looks up when he hears Otabek’s footsteps, looking uncharacteristically uncertain and boyish. The light dusting of pink is back on his cheeks.

“I--” Plisetsky starts, then pauses, face scrunching up. Otabek gives him a moment. “Your name,” the younger boy says instead, not quite a question.

“Otabek Altin.” He’s not sure if he should offer a hand, or ask something--

“Yuri Plisetsky,” the other boy says, matter-of-fact.

 _I know,_ Otabek almost says. “Did you need something?” he asks instead, because he really can’t think of a reason for Plisetsky to seek him out.

Again, the hesitation. Plisetsky frowns, a frustration turned inward, like he’s not sure what to say. Up close like this, he looks very different from on stage; less otherworldly, more slightly cranky university sophomore.

“I want to listen to you play,” Plisetsky says, simply.

Otabek blinks at him.

“Please,” Plisetsky tacks on, as if that makes his request any less confusing.

“I, uh.” Otabek fidgets in place. Plisetsky just looks at him in expectant silence. This is entirely too surreal.

“Okay,” Otabek concedes.

He doesn’t expect Plisetsky to _smile,_ but he does anyway, small and pleasantly surprised but still bright.

 

Plisetsky stays the afternoon, sitting off to the side and going through a reading. He’s surprisingly quiet, only mumbling to himself occasionally as he reads. It’s almost -- comfortable, how Plisetsky is just there, highlighting phrases or looking something up in his notes, while Otabek runs through warm-up scales and breaks the Chopin piece into sections.

If Plisetsky has anything to say about Otabek’s technique, he keeps it to himself.

After a few hours, Plisetsky stands, stretching his arms in front of him. He gathers up his things, puts away his papers. Otabek stops in the middle of playing, looking up.

“Thank you,” Plisetsky says, after a slight pause. Then he hesitates, nods, and leaves the room.

The door closes much more quietly this time around.

 

Otabek doesn’t get back to the music room again until the following Tuesday. He tries to remain unexpectant, but he’s still a little bummed when he doesn’t see anyone waiting by the door or in the room. He sighs to himself as he enters the room, one hand opening his bag to search for the assigned sheet music.

The sounds of a violin greet him. He looks up, about to apologize for interrupting, when he sees sunshine hair and slender limbs.

Plisetsky has his eyes closed as he plays. It’s only a standard practice piece, an up-and-down melody, but it still sounds -- sharp, exquisite.

Otabek stands there and watches and _listens._

Plisetsky doesn’t seem surprised to see Otabek by the door when he finishes. He simply lowers the violin and tips his head to the side. “Do you need to practice?”

“Yeah.” Otabek holds up the Chopin sheet music, corner of his mouth quirking up.

“Okay,” Plisetsky says. Then he puts away the violin, brings out another reading. Sits off to the side, again, to work.

Otabek stands there and blinks until he realizes he looks silly. He goes to set himself up at the piano. Plisetsky keeps working quietly.

He leaves again after a few hours, quietly packing up as Otabek stretches his shoulders.

“Thank you,” Plisetsky says.

There’s a brief pause, then Otabek replies, “you’re welcome.”

The corners of Plisetsky’s mouth quirk up, then he’s gone.

 

They fall in step after that, a companionship that comes slowly but simply. Otabek doesn’t know what Plisetsky’s schedule is like, but the boy will sometimes drop by the practice room to listen to Otabek while he does his homework. Or sometimes Otabek will chance across him in the quad, in the cafeteria, in the corridors. They eat together a few times, on and off campus.

The first time surprises him; the invitation had simply slipped out, a natural part of the conversation. Otabek mentions he’s off to get some lunch and “would you like to join me?”

Plisetsky's eyes widen, briefly. There is a hesitation again. Otabek wonders whether it would be offensive to take it back.

But then Plisetsky nods, once, as if convincing himself of something, and then again. So they eat together, quietly, companionably. Plisetsky is the first to leave, saying he has to go to class.

The next time Otabek runs into him on a break, he asks Plisetsky if he wants to get coffee.

The agreement comes a little easier this time around.

Being around each other becomes a little more comfortable.

Otabek keeps asking.

 

(And between all this, the memory of Plisetsky's performance lingers, soft echoes in the back of Otabek’s mind. He looks at Plisetsky across the bench in the quad and thinks about how so resonant a sound comes from this boy with hair like straw in sunshine.)

 

Somewhere along the way, _Plisetsky_ becomes _Yuri,_ a sophomore violin major in the performing arts department. A prodigy at seventeen, with Lilia Baranovskaya herself as his mentor, but also an indie/contemporary rock fan and a hoarder of those _pastilas_ that are sometimes sold at the college cafeteria. Behind the breathtaking talent, Otabek finds a young adult who loves all things cat-printed and doesn’t do well with mornings.

Yuri staggers into the music room for the first and only time they decide to meet before classes, bleary-eyed and clutching a cup of coffee. Otabek almost snorts in laughter. It earns him a lingering glower and Yuri being in a snit until he leaves for his music history class, but Otabek doesn’t mind.

He picks up little things -- a scarf Yuri always has on him somewhere, around his neck or tied to his bag; a tiny cat keychain that resembles the one he has at home, with his grandfather. A photo with Mila in his wallet, reluctantly brought out, showing Mila’s bright grin and a fondness in Yuri’s eyes no matter that his expression’s disgruntled. He learns that Yuri has a sweet tooth, that he has trouble backing down when he feels he’s being challenged, looked down on, slighted. That Yuri has habit of never really sitting _still,_ fingers always with tiny motions; always like Yuri is privy to some tune that nobody else can hear.

Otabek trades this boy pieces of himself in return, his favorite shawarma place and his stories of Almaty and his half-formed, wistful idea of becoming a DJ if being a pianist doesn’t work out. He brings his guitar with him when they eat out on the quad, playing whatever songs come to mind while Yuri studies. He introduces Yuri to JJ and Isabella, unable to smother his laughter as JJ riles Yuri up and Yuri snaps back like an angry cat. He takes Yuri for a ride on his motorbike, once, whizzing aimlessly through the city as Yuri throws his head back and watches the sky skim by overhead.

“Should have figured you’d have one of these,” Yuri says, laughing as he slides off the back of the bike. He wriggles a little, hips and thighs unused to the strain.

Otabek snorts as he leans a foot on the sidewalk for balance. “Why?”

Yuri shrugs, takes off the helmet Otabek had lent him. Runs slender, calloused fingers through sunshine hair. “It suits you.”

Otabek raises his eyebrows.

“It just does,” Yuri says, then looks over his shoulder. Otabek’s brought him right home, but there’s no offer to come inside. Yuri just scrunches his face up slightly then turns back to Otabek. “Thank you. For today. I’ll return the helmet at school.”

“Sure thing.” Otabek offers Yuri a smile, a wry, sideways slant of his lips. The expression on Yuri’s face softens, and he waves as he turns to his house.

Otabek waits until Yuri’s gone inside before he leaves.

 

In between all this are Otabek’s favorite moments -- the times when it’s Yuri playing, breathtaking even off the stage. When Yuri arrives to the practice room first and decides to pass the time rehearsing a piece; when it’s Otabek doing some homework for his general classes while Yuri plays a tune caught in his head. Standing in the middle of the room, violin tucked under his chin, hair flitting about his face as his body moves -- Yuri is incredible to watch, to _hear._

It’s during one of these afternoons that Otabek comes to a decision over an idea he’s half-entertained since seeing the flyers around the department. He’s been hesitant about it, not knowing how far he can push yet. But as he listens to Yuri play _Claire De Lune,_ fingers dancing in the afternoon sun, he thinks, _okay._

The only way to make something a reality is to do it.

 

And so, the next week, Otabek almost sprints out of his last class, determined to make it to the practice room first. On the way, he makes a quick stop at the piano department, grabs something from an envelope tacked to the board on the wall outside. Then he books it over, mentally rehearsing what it is he wants to say to Yuri--

\--who’s already in the room, sitting cross-legged on the floor and restringing his violin.

So much for that.

Yuri looks up, eyebrows raised when he sees Otabek catching his breath in the doorway.

Well, now or never.

Otabek inhales, exhales, strides forward. Wordlessly, he holds out the sign-up sheet for the students’ mid-semester open show. He’s taking a big chance here, doesn’t know if Yuri’s signed himself up yet, and more importantly he knows Yuri doesn’t do well with accompanists. But Otabek can be stubborn, too.

“What’s this for?” Yuri asks, scanning the sheet. Otabek can see the moment Yuri realizes what it is, and quickly preempts any protest or flat-out rejection.

“I’ve heard you play,” he says, and this isn’t quite how he’d wanted to propose this to Yuri but he hopes he’s getting his sincerity across. “And I know you’ve heard me, and I _don’t_ know what you think but I know it was enough to make you listen. And you, the way you play, it’s -- unforgettable.”

The way he looks when he plays, the way he sounds, his music _\-- Yuri_ is unforgettable.

Yuri frowns at the sheet, then up at Otabek, but there’s a wrinkle in his expression that tells Otabek that he’s at least considering this.

“Neither of us have played with accompaniments in -- a while,” Yuri says slowly, biting at his lip a bit. It’s a very diplomatic way of saying Yuri is terrible at playing alongside someone and Otabek is not particularly sociable. “And we’ve never played with each other, and there’s -- not a lot of time to practice, and--”

“And we’ll make it work.” Otabek meets Yuri’s eyes, setting his jaw. He’s more than certain they’re both talented enough to do this, somehow; he trusts their abilities, his own determination, Yuri’s prodigious skill. “Will you perform with me or not?”

Yuri bristles at that; it almost makes Otabek laugh, how easily this boy is provoked. But it’s part of what makes him so admirable.

“Fine,” Yuri says, tossing his head and turning to stuff the sign-up sheet into his clear file.

This time, Otabek does laugh, and even if Yuri glowers at him in response, the pink flush high on the boy’s cheeks makes it worth it.

 

Deciding to perform together is relatively simple. Deciding on _what_ to perform together is much more difficult.

“Tchaikovsky or Chopin would be a… prudent choice,” Otabek says, tapping one of the score books scattered on their table. They’re having lunch together, during one of the few times their schedules allow it. Otabek had suggested foregoing the cafeteria in favor of lunch at a nearby café.

Yuri’s expression scrunches up. “That’s what everyone else will be playing.”

“For a good reason,” Otabek points out, but he does agree. “Bach? Rachmaninoff?”

“Still too conventional.” Yuri looks up from the score books to frown at Otabek. “What’s with you, anyway? I didn't think you’d suggest these, they’re all too common.”

That is, of course, exactly why Otabek is suggesting them -- if Yuri’s such a stickler for precision and perfection, the most prominent pieces would be the best options. But the subtext of Yuri’s words catches him off-guard. “Wait, why wouldn’t I suggest these?”

There is a brief moment where Yuri looks at him flatly. “That’s not what _you_ play.”

Otabek blinks, surprised. He hadn’t thought Yuri would know his style of play that well -- Yuri hadn’t even known _him_ before this. Before he can press the issue, Yuri turns back to the score books with a huff. “Anyway, just -- give better suggestions.”

Otabek exhales slow, a little taken aback. He looks at Yuri and carefully starts to turn things over in his mind. He thinks back to the opening showcase, to Yuri’s choice of music. _On Love: Agape_ is not a conventional choice in itself, either, as is adapting a multi-instrument piece to just one violin.

For all Yuri’s adherence to score and orthodox manner of playing, he’s always chosen a less traditional brand of music.

So Otabek thinks it over. Then he ruffles through his bag for a clear file, searching for a few pages of sheet music. Yuri watches him curiously. Otabek places the sheets between them, trying not to hold his breath out of apprehension.

He’s played this piece before, though not for a show. He’s wanted to, though; it’s a good piece -- powerful, resonant, unconventional.

Yuri studies the sheet music, and Otabek can practically _hear_ him playing the music in his head. The fingers of Yuri’s left hand shift lightly.

“I like it,” Yuri pronounces, breaking into a wide grin. Otabek exhales, relieved.

“I’ll get a copy of the sheet music, then we can start practice on Friday,” Yuri adds, matter-of-fact, already reaching for his planner. Otabek blinks, taken aback. It’s Tuesday. The showcase is almost three months from now, in the middle of the semester. Yuri hasn’t even played this piece on his own.

Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t daunt Yuri in the slightest.

 

The first thing Yuri makes Otabek do on Friday is play their selected piece. The _Samarkand Overture_ has a slow-looming intensity, like a storm crackling just on the horizon. Otabek’s first pass is riddled with errors, unsurprising given that he hasn’t played this piece in months, and given its tempo and difficulty.

Yuri _hmphs_ and impatiently helps him work through it.

It doesn’t go well, at the start.

(It’s a charitable description. In reality, it’s a downright mess.)

“Stop,” Yuri commands, reaching out to swat at Otabek’s arm with his own copy of the score. They’ve been at it for two hours and Otabek can’t seem to produce a sound that comes close to satisfying the young violinist. The frown etched on Yuri’s brow is in danger of becoming a permanent feature. “From measure twelve, again.”

Otabek bites back any snappy comments at the tip of his tongue and repositions his hands on the keys. He waits for Yuri’s cue, then starts to play.

They get seven measures in before Yuri makes them stop again.

This time, Otabek _does_ make a noise of frustration. Yuri glares back at him.

_"What?"_

“It would be more helpful,” Otabek says through gritted teeth, “if you at least told me what I’m doing wrong.”

“I’m telling you _where_ you’re wrong, aren’t I?”

“You have to be more specific than that.”

“ _Fine,_ ” Yuri snaps. To Otabek’s disbelief, the boy actually reaches out and snatches his copy of the score from the stand. Yuri produces a red pen and starts scribbling all over it, notations and prompts, encircling different sections. The first page is almost completely riddled with comments when Otabek snatches it back.

“What are you doing?” he hisses.

“ _Being specific,_ ” Yuri bites back, and Otabek is beginning to understand why no accompanist has stuck with him before.

“You can just _tell me,_ ” he says, trying for a calmer tone of voice. He succeeds, mostly.

Yuri reaches for the sheet again. “I’m doing that, aren’t I?”

Years of dealing with JJ and his ridiculous antics are the only thing preventing Otabek from sniping right back. He’d started this partnership; he’s not going to ruin it.

“I mean,” he says, reclaiming his sheets and setting them aside. He takes a deep breath, looks Yuri in the eye. “Actually _tell_ me. I can’t read your mind, Yuri, I don’t know how you’re hearing me and how it’s wrong. So _say it._ Tell me if I should adjust a tempo, play something differently, and _how._ ”

There’s a few moments where they stare each other down, and Otabek is genuinely worried that Yuri will say this is all too much effort and they can’t work together. But then Yuri breaks away first, looking down at his music score. He’s got his nose all scrunched up.

Otabek can practically _see_ the metaphorical storm cloud over Yuri’s head start to peter out, and it’s then that it dawns on him why Yuri finds it so difficult to work with other musicians. He’s never fully understood that they can’t simply just _be_ as instinctively good as him, as perfectly schooled and versed in technique and execution. Few musicians their age would match Yuri so easily, and Yuri has never known the patience to wait for someone to catch up.

Yuri had likely not been allowed that same patience while learning, himself.

“I don’t--” Yuri cuts himself off, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. “I -- I’m not--”

Otabek gentles his expression, and waits.

Yuri exhales sharply. There’s red high on his cheeks.

“Okay.”

 

It goes better, after that.

 

Day by day, they work to learn the piece. Yuri works to modulate himself as well, curb his impatience and temper. As someone far more used to bare-bones, Spartan-styled training, it’s difficult, but he tries.

Otabek appreciates it.

Yuri’s also picked up a little, by now, on the way Otabek learns musical pieces -- breaking them into sections, working through those so he can ingrain the proper tune and timing into his fingers, his mind. Otabek is perhaps not as naturally gifted, as elegant as most musicians Yuri is used to knowing, but his work ethic and his understanding of the music cannot be faulted.

And the way he plays, his style--

The way he executes the song is so unlike how Yuri does it. Otabek’s technique is still a little unrefined, his skill still a little raw. But each lends itself effortlessly to the music, creating a sound that’s definitive and unique.

Where Yuri’s execution is exact, a paper edge, Otabek is far more uncontrived and loose. It’s imprecise, imperfect. It doesn’t perfectly match the score. It shouldn’t sound _right_ at all.

It makes Yuri’s breath catch, anyway.

He persists, though, stubbornly correcting Otabek’s pacing, whittling at it so it matches the way he plays. It has to be correct.

(As has been etched in him, an ethos: _this is how you must play, this is how you must sound. This is how the score goes.)_

Otabek frowns at him over the top of the piano.

“What?” Yuri snaps, feels the heat rise in his cheeks.

Otabek looks at him for a long moment, as if searching.

“Adhering perfectly to the score isn’t all that matters,” he says carefully. His expression is neutral. Yuri feels a little stung.

“It’s how you’re supposed to play,” Yuri insists, and he lifts the violin back to his shoulder.

Otabek’s impassive gaze lingers on him a little, but Yuri resolutely resumes the section they’re working on. After a moment, Otabek follows.

 

Once, during lunch, Otabek looks up and across the quad, and something comes to mind.

“Yakov advises Victor Nikiforov, too, doesn’t he?” He turns to Yuri and is a little surprised to find a scrunched-up, irritated look on the boy’s face.

“Unfortunately,” Yuri huffs out. He’s started eating his pasta with more vitriol than strictly necessary. “Why’re you bringing that asshole up?”

Otabek raises a brow. He’s encountered a few envious and bitter reactions to Victor, but Yuri seems particularly vehement, like Victor’s existence is a personal affront.

“I was just reminded,” he says, easing off as an apology. Yuri wrinkles his nose and snorts.

“I don’t want to remind people of that shithead,” he says, stabbing his fork into the noodles. Something changes in his expression, makes it less harsh and more -- frustrated? Pained? With the way Yuri has his head ducked, frowning at his food, Otabek can’t really tell.

Otabek thinks of Yuri’s music, the way he wields his sound like a weapon. Perhaps Yuri’s prodigious skill is reminiscent of Victor’s, yes, but they don’t sound alike. Otabek says as much. Yuri looks up, eyes wide in pleasant surprise, slightly flushed.

“Good,” Yuri says, and he probably means it to sound dignified and final, but it also comes off a little too pleased. “I’m going to be better than him, than all of them. The best violinist. I’ll make everyone listen to me.”

And his expression, the way he looks -- eyes fever-bright, color high on his cheeks, hair caught in the sunlight. The way he says it like it’s irrefutable fact, like he’s daring the universe to say otherwise.

He’s breathtaking. Otabek can’t look away.

“You will,” he says, sincerely, because this boy could bring the world to a standstill with his music. Otabek can hear that. “I believe you.”

 

(The way Yuri smiles -- that’s breathtaking, too.)

 

 **king_jj** _ > Yuri Plisetsky actually let you be his accompanist?????? _  
**dj.altin** _ < i suggested it, but yes _  
**king_jj** _ > Wow _  
**king_jj** _ > How are you not dead yet _  
**dj.altin** _ < i’m very stubborn and i bribe him with good food _

**[unsent] dj.altin** _ < he really does sound amazing _

 

Otabek thinks JJ’s text isn’t much of an exaggeration, in all honesty; practicing with Yuri is brutal. It makes sense, of course; Yuri’s brand of precision and technique has to come from somewhere, and all signs point to ruthless discipline and unforgiving standards. It doesn’t stop Otabek from feeling like death after another practice in which Yuri had made him play a section over and over until it had sounded _correct._

But Otabek hadn’t been exaggerating in his reply, either; he persists, and his fingers learn the sound, until it matches Yuri on the violin. Until they finally play through the entire song together, to the last snap of a bow and press of fingers to keys.

Yuri’s breathing hard, hand rigid at his side where it holds out the bow. It goes limp when he turns to Otabek, violin coming untucked from his chin. There’s a moment in which they simply look at each other, and then a slow grin unfurls over Yuri’s face.

“Again,” he says, and his excitement catches in Otabek’s chest and makes him return the smile.

He turns back to the piano. Yuri lifts the violin to his shoulder.

They play; they make it work.

 

Midterms force them to take a break, halting their practices so they can study and put in work for their requirements. Otabek feels dizzy from everything he has to memorize, names and dates and titles, and then there’s the Chopin piece, and an annoying general elective. But he still finds time to check up on Yuri, text him little things. Small reprieves in the chaos.

 **dj.altin** < _img.attachment_  
**dj.altin** _ < company during lunch in the quad today _  
**icetiger_** _ > no fair!!! she never comes on my lap _  
**dj.altin** _ < i think it was my fish tacos _ _  
_ **icetiger_** > _traitor_

He wishes Yuri good luck for his practicals, gets a tiny cat emoji in return.

Otabek smiles all the way to his classroom.

 

The Monday after midterms, they come back together to meet at Yuri’s insistence, despite all of Otabek’s efforts to say they should rest at least a day before resuming practice. But the showcase is just a few days away, and Yuri’s determination has taken on a sharp edge. It feels a little like he’s trying to prove something. Otabek doesn’t pry, but he does get firmer about ending their practices on time, taking breaks every few run-throughs.

Something about Yuri’s restlessness, his feverish energy, is unsettling, and Otabek tries to temper it as he can.

Five days left becomes, four, two, and then it’s Friday and when Otabek meets Yuri after his class he does so with the mandate that they’re _not_ practicing.

“It’s the day before the showcase,” Yuri points out, with an expression that tells Otabek he’s gearing up to fight over this.

“It is,” Otabek concedes, taking Yuri by the shoulders and steering him towards the building exit, _away_ from the practice rooms. “Which is why we should relax for today.”

Otabek can feel the tension in Yuri’s shoulders, the way he steels himself to protest. He pushes a little firmer. “No buts,” he says, before Yuri can say anything. “We won’t do ourselves any favors by overworking.”

Yuri stays tense and irritated a moment more before deflating, at which point Otabek deems it safe to relinquish his grip and fall into stride beside his friend. “Fine,” Yuri acquiesces, which makes Otabek smile.

“Thank you,” he says, and ignores the way Yuri rolls his eyes. “Now come on. I missed lunch because my stupid professor misgraded one of my tests, and I’m starving.”

They end up buying food at the cafeteria then taking it out to the quad, seated under one of the big trees instead of a bench. It’s quiet, companionable; one thing Otabek appreciates about Yuri is how comfortable it is around him, with or without conversation.

Yuri finishes eating first, folds his wrappers into smaller and smaller squares. It makes Otabek huff a laugh under his breath.

“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” he asks, quirking a brow.

Yuri turns to him sharply, frowning. “No,” he says, like it’s an obvious answer to a stupid question. “I’ve practiced.”

Otabek snorts inelegantly, shaking his head when Yuri glowers at him. It’s very _Yuri_ to feel that way, he supposes.

“True,” he says when he’s calmed down and Yuri’s returned to tidying up his trash. “We’ve spent a lot of time on this. We should be fine.”

There’s a brief moment where Yuri’s hands still; his lips part a little. He exhales a tiny smile.

“Right.” Yuri dusts off his hands and stands, collecting his trash and his things. He looks down at Otabek with something soft and indecipherable in his expression. “We will.”

 

(What Yuri doesn’t say: that the _we_ had made his breath catch, just a little. It is still so new and fragile, that he is sharing his music. That someone will be behind and beside him. Playing _with_ him.

 _We,_ he thinks, and the word curls warm in his lungs.)

 

Otabek will never admit it out loud, but it is far easier for Yuri to trust his skills so implicitly than for Otabek to trust his own. _He’s_ nervous about their performance, and not just because he knows his skill level is far from being on par with his partner’s.

But they’ve come too far, and he’s invested too much for either of them to regret anything or back out. All they have left to do is play.

 

They’ve pre-arranged to meet at the venue, which means Otabek doesn’t start to get ready until an hour before, the seemingly inexorable habit of someone who lives just ten minutes from everywhere he needs to be. He lets himself linger in the shower a bit, though, standing under the lukewarm spray. He starts to fret while buttoning up his shirt.

The walk over helps somewhat. He arrives at the building in time to see Yuri climbing out of a small green car. His smile is unexpectedly bright as he says something to the other person in the vehicle, an old man with a cap and a gruff expression. It makes Otabek pause, feeling a little like he’s intruded on something.

Yuri waves the person off, and the car heads for the parking area. Otabek hangs back a little, waiting until Yuri is through the door, before he heads inside as well.

 

Backstage, Yuri fidgets in the suit, wrinkling his nose. He looks unconventional as always: striped blazer with its rolled-up sleeves, matching his black and white Oxfords under pants that cut off just at the ankle. It feels so very different from Otabek in his formal green blazer and trousers that fall over his formal brogues. He glances at Yuri, who’s leaning against the wall, eyes closed. Lithe fingers shift at his side, twitching in some odd sort of rhythm.

 _Chords,_ Otabek realizes. He’s playing their piece in his head.

It’s a difficult one, their music selection. Unconventional for an open show, even here in their university. Technically challenging, but serrated and raw, angry where students usually go for melancholy or buoyant. It’s the kind of song he favors, something hard-hitting, but it’s a blunt hammer when Yuri favors music like scalpels and paper edges.

He has faith, though. They can pull this off.

“Next act!” the staff member calls. A nervous-looking student steps out onto the stage, a poet. Otabek steadies his breathing; opens and closes his fists. They’re up after this.

Beside him, Yuri pushes up off the wall, exhaling slowly. He reaches down to pick up his instrument case, takes out the violin and its bow, clipped movements. The case he hands to the staff member; the instrument he brings to his side. Like this, head up and shoulders pushed back, Yuri looks sharper; looks taut, like the strings of his violin.

Otabek raises his head and exhales the cold from his chest.

“Next act!” the staff member calls again.

Yuri doesn’t look back as he steps onto the stage, which is fine. Otabek is right behind.

 

The crowd is fair-sized, given that there are no particularly major acts. Theirs might count, for those curious of and intrigued by Yuri’s potential, Otabek’s sound; he’s also spotted Leo backstage with his guitar. Otabek goes to the piano to adjust the seat and smooth his fingers over the keys, set up his sheet music. Yuri simply stops at the center of the stage and looks out, expression shuttered.

It’s quiet in the black box theater, broken only by the soft chatter of people and the distant sounds of the city. They’d been a little concerned by the acoustics -- this place is better suited to verbal performances than anything instrumental; still, there’s nothing they can do but play. Otabek settles onto the piano bench, taps the pedals. His hands are poised over the keys. Waits for Yuri’s cue.

He doesn’t give one. One moment he’s tucking the violin under his chin; the next, his arm snaps back for the first, sharp note. If the song hadn’t been so ingrained in Otabek by now, if he hadn’t had himself attuned to Yuri’s movements, he might have fumbled.

But his fingers move, and then everything falls away except the music.

 

For all the unconventionality of his outfit, Yuri plays as he always does: precise, controlled; a study of technique. All the ups and pauses of the score, the textbook tempo. He plays in the way he knows teachers, critics, judges like to hear. Impeccable, clean, orthodox.

So Otabek takes a deep breath. And then the music _changes._

It’s still the [Samarkand Overture](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0waWI_IeKHE&index=14&list=PL1gGHHQWn-NWwAMM7hcZ0e-r3YwuIINpM) _,_ only he’s sped it up, just a little, a quarter tempo faster. The song’s mood shifts a little as well, something harsher and wilder, a whirlwind instead of a looming storm; a stampede. It thrums under his skin like static. And as Otabek’s fingers fly over the keys, he looks up at Yuri.

His violinist has turned, is looking at him with disbelief, but he’s still playing.

Skilled as he is, Yuri adapts to Otabek’s new arrangement, fingers dancing over the strings as his bow flies back and forth. He tears his eyes away from Otabek, squeezes them shut. His slender body shifts with the movements of his arms, twisting and swaying, and Otabek knows he cannot be the only one rendered breathless by this sight.

Tempestuous, fervent, and intense: Yuri is unlike anything he’s ever seen.

So Otabek provokes him further, pushes the both of them. His fingers continue to play, a declaration and a challenge.

_Yuri Plisetsky, are you listening?_

(Otabek is not a prodigy, but he refuses to be something less.)

And Yuri --

It’s almost like he’s dancing, the way he’s thrown himself into the song. Undaunted, he matches Otabek note for note, and there is a challenge of his own in his music. It is -- exhilarating, a thrill in Otabek’s body, like he’s been set alight by the sparks coming from the friction of their duet.

As Otabek slams out the last chord; as Yuri pulls his bow over the last note, throws his arm out to the side, chest heaving -- Otabek has his answer.

There is a beat of stunned silence. Then some clapping here and there, small outbreaks of chatter. Then the applause begins to thunder, the cheers and whistles. Otabek steadies himself, stands, bows smoothly. When he lifts his head, he finds Yuri still standing there, violin held awkwardly to his shoulder, outstretched arm drooping slightly. He’s staring out at the crowd in a daze.

“Yuri,” Otabek says, hopefully loud enough that the boy hears him. Yuri startles a little, blinks, as if he’s just realized he’s on stage and has just performed something fantastic. His hands drop to his side, grip shifting, as he gives a much more perfunctory bow. Then he turns on his heel and strides off the stage without a second glance. 

 

 fic art by [laroone](http://laroone.tumblr.com/post/171011447019/my-piece-for-plstskyss-fic-measure-by)

 

Otabek catches up to Yuri in the quad outside the building; the young violinist had simply walked all the way out after snatching his case back. He’s unsurprised by the staccato beat of Yuri’s steps; the stunt he’d pulled in there was unexpected, to put it very mildly. If Yuri were angry, it would be warranted.

(And given the way Yuri knows to play, it would be inevitable.)

Otabek doesn’t regret it, though.

It’s therefore even more unexpected that Yuri comes to a stop midway through the quad, and the hand that’s not holding the violin case reaches back. He half-turns, and Otabek realizes Yuri’s reaching out to _him._ Tentatively, he takes Yuri’s hand in his. It’s trembling.

“I can’t stop shaking,” Yuri says breathlessly, sounding like he’s not quite sure what’s happening to him. He’s panting, mouth open in something almost a smile. His eyes are wide; there’s a flush high on his cheeks.

“Why did you do that?” Yuri asks, demands. He looks up, looks Otabek right in the eye, but there’s none of the indignation or hurt that Otabek had expected. Instead, his eyes are fever-bright. The air between them feels like static as Otabek drags it into his lungs. It’s five pm on a Saturday.

Otabek recognizes the way he looks -- it’s the same as when they were in the quad, Yuri in a halo of sunlight.

_I’ll make them listen to me._

“Because nothing would change otherwise,” he answers honestly. _Because you wanted the world to stop, to listen,_ but those words stay in his lungs.

Yuri looks at him, gaze flitting over Otabek’s face like he’s searching for something. Otabek’s still holding his hand.

He drops his gaze to somewhere just above Otabek’s shoulder, but it doesn’t feel like he’s looking at anything nearby. His grip on Otabek’s hand goes slack.

“Okay?” Otabek asks, a little nervous.

The slender, calloused hand leaves his; Yuri steps back. Inhales slow, a steadying force. Nods.

“Okay.”

 

(Sometime later on, Yuri asks Otabek why he’s so unafraid to play imperfectly. Otabek frowns, halfway to taking a sip of his coffee.

“What do you mean?” he asks, setting down his cup.

“Well.” Yuri takes a moment, looking down at the table. His hands flex around his cup of hot chocolate. “When people come to listen, they want to hear the composer’s music, don’t they? How it’s meant to sound. How it should be.”

Otabek looks at Yuri for a long moment. There’s something unreadable in his gaze.

“No,” he replies, steady and sure. “They come to hear _you.”)_

 

On Monday, there are plenty of students who congratulate Otabek on the performance. Leo tells him that he’d been rooted to the spot while listening, absolutely blown away. Mila says she hadn’t known he was capable of that kind of performance.

JJ is grinning like a madman when he finds Otabek during their common break, booking it from across the quad to where Otabek is setting up his lunch on a bench.

_“Otabek,”_ his friend says once he’s within speaking range (and for JJ, that’s actually quite far). “What was that the other day?”

“What was what?” Otabek asks around a mouthful of shawarma rice.

“Your performance?” JJ throws himself down onto the bench beside Otabek, pulling a burger out of the paper bag he’s holding. “That was _amazing.”_

“Oh.” Otabek shovels more rice into his mouth, hunching up a bit. He’s never been the smoothest at accepting compliments, but today he’s received so many it’s getting embarrassing. Still, he swallows and smiles, ducking his head. “Thanks.”

“Where’s your partner, though?” JJ raises his eyebrows, looking around like Yuri might suddenly appear from behind a tree. “The little prodigy.”

Otabek isn’t actually sure; sophomores have different schedules, and Yuri hasn’t told Otabek much about the classes he takes. They’d agreed to meet back up tomorrow, have some rest after the performance, but beyond that Otabek draws a blank.

“Well, when you see him, pass on my congratulations. You both were fantastic.”

Otabek huffs a little, going back to his lunch.

“Will do,” he says, and the conversation turns to other things until they both have to run to their next classes.

 

Later in the afternoon, after Otabek’s gotten out of his music theory class, he messages Yuri.

**dj.altin** _ < jj says congrats. leo says we blew him away. i think mila indirectly insulted me  
_**dj.altin** < _seems we did good_

 

It’s another two hours before he gets to check his phone again. There’s no reply.

Otabek thinks about sending another message, but in the end just sets his phone aside. They’ll see each other tomorrow.

 

Except they don’t. It’s Mila who finds him in between classes, tells him Yuri can’t make it today. Otabek frowns up at her.

“Did he say why?” he asks, rooting around for his phone to check if Yuri’s sent him a reply. Nothing.

Mila just wrinkles her nose. “Think he overexerted himself a bit at your performance, so he’s not feeling so great.” She shrugs. “He’ll be fine, should be back by tomorrow or Thursday.”

“All right.” Otabek looks up, flashes her a smile. “Thanks.”

 

(Things are fine.)

 

Yuri messages him on Friday, says he’ll be at their usual practice room after his classes. When Otabek shows up, he finds Yuri’s put some Kreutzer on. His left hand’s absently tapping chords onto the floor, while his right sorts through sheet music spread in front of him.

“There you are,” Otabek says by way of greeting. He shuts the door behind him, drops his bag beside Yuri’s by the door. “I was starting to feel forgotten.”

Yuri holds up a finger, wordlessly telling Otabek to wait. He goes back to sorting through the sheet music while Otabek stands a few steps away, slightly confused. When the song comes to an end, Yuri fumbles beside himself for his phone, tones down the volume.

“Allegro Appassionato,” he says, finally glancing up.

“Huh?” is Otabek’s eloquent response. Yuri levels a deadpan look at him.

“Allegro Appassionato. The student showcase, at the end of the year.” Yuri taps the sheet music in front of him. “I’m trying to think of a piece for us.”

“Oh,” Otabek says, catching up to things. And then, “us?”

Yuri raises his eyebrows. “Well, yes.” There’s a smirk hiding in the corners of his lips as he fixes his gaze on Otabek, throws back the words Otabek had posed to him all those weeks ago. “Will you perform with me or not?”

Otabek looks down at this remarkable and, quite frankly, unbelievable boy, who blinks up at him expectantly. And Otabek realizes he shouldn’t have anticipated anything less. It makes him laugh, soft and under his breath.

“What are you thinking?” he asks, settling himself on the floor across Yuri. “Einaudi? Tchaikovsky?”

The younger boy bares his teeth in a not-quite-grin, eyes bright, and Otabek braces himself.

 

Yuri wants to compose a song.

He argues that it has more impact than performing a set piece, especially since they’ll have to make sure they don’t play the same thing as someone else. It has the added benefit of aligning with Otabek’s second semester requirement of a short original composition. There’s the added weight of having to create a song from scratch, which they’ll have to finesse then practice, but Yuri says it will be worth it.

With only the smallest reservations, Otabek agrees.

 

(Little does he know, then, of the oncoming storm.)


	2. medley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Composing a song turns out to be exactly as difficult as Otabek imagined, but both he and Yuri are stubborn enough to make it work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **CONTENT WARNING** for some whump/angst.
> 
> The song Otabek plays in the music room and the café is [_Yuujin A-kun wo Watashi no Bansousha ni Ninmeishimasu / Spring's Melody_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZsVeZYgIiE) from Your Lie In April, the piano part up to around the 1:00 mark.
> 
> The composition that Yuri and Otabek are playing is [_Allegro Appassionato in B Minor_](https://open.spotify.com/track/4goGoOCRx4USRRteJfpQjR?si=5nj_7k2eTOunfDfKq7VMFg), Yuri's free skate song from the anime.

* * *

 

 

Composing a song turns out to be exactly as difficult as Otabek had imagined.

Yuri is unrelenting in his pursuit of -- _something._ He can’t quite define it, but says he’ll know the sound when he hears it. He wants it as intense as the Samarkand Overture, but not as harsh or severe.

“Something -- wild,” he says, expression scrunched up. “But still controlled. Something that makes you _feel.”_

It’s Tuesday afternoon. Otabek looks at Yuri, who’s standing in the middle of a mess of sheet music, brow furrowed. He has half a mind to say there’s plenty of existing compositions out there that would likely match that sound, but he’s already lost that battle. Twice. And taking this up with Yuri feels rather like a staring contest with a mountain; it does move, but on a severely more impressive timescale and not without you losing first.

Yuri makes a small, frustrated noise and reaches down to pick up some sheets, chewing on his lip as he reads the scores. Otabek leans back against the covered piano and looks at the ceiling.

24 weeks to go.

 

Wednesday of the next week finds them listening to Bach while Yuri paces back and forth.

“We could also go with something more emotional,” Otabek points out from where he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, shuffling listlessly through the sheet music. “Or something similar to a contemporary piece, like Nuvole Bianche.”

Yuri pauses his steps, tapping a finger to his lips in contemplation. Otabek doesn’t hold his breath; melancholic, evocative pieces are par for the course in showcases. It’s neither of their styles.

“No,” Yuri says dismissively.

Otabek sighs, and goes back to shuffling papers.

It shouldn’t be possible for someone to feel like both the unstoppable force and the immovable object, but Yuri always seems to be some sort of exception.

 

“We could go off something Saint-Saëns,” Otabek suggests the next Friday, shuffling through Yuri’s sheafs of papers. This time they’re both on the floor of the music room, poking through the sheets half-heartedly as they try to imagine what sound they want to go for.

Yuri hums in response. “Rondo Capriccioso?”

“Similar,” Otabek agrees, trying to find the sheet music. “Shifting time signatures.”

“Could be interesting,” Yuri muses. “Needs to be sharper.”

“If we made it sound like the Overture…” Otabek finally pulls out the relevant pages, puts them on the floor between him and Yuri. “But slowed it down in the middle, maybe?”

Yuri purses his lips, thinking. Otabek looks at him and thinks, not for the first time, that he would like to see inside Yuri’s head. _Hear_ what it’s like, the sounds this boy is undoubtedly running through, imagining. Otabek knows how he himself thinks when he’s trying to compose, stringing together small sections of notes or visualizing tiny fragments of music, but.

But Yuri is something else.

There’s a few moments of silence while they both stare at the sheet music, contemplating. Then Yuri exhales sharply and starts gathering the papers up.

“I’ll think about it,” he says, and that’s the end of this meeting.

 

It goes like that for a few days, a week, then two. The days begin to grow chillier. They meet in the music room for a while, playing different pieces on speaker while looking through sheet music, trying to figure out a sound. Every once in a while Otabek will point out an interesting section of music, or Yuri will encircle a series of chords. A few times, they note down a fragment of a tune they think of. But mostly, it is plenty of racking their brains and being frustrated.

Then one day, Otabek heads for the music room. He’s a little late; his music theory class had extended and then he’d had to drop off a paper at the department. He’s out of breath and panting from running when he gets to the room, so he doesn’t notice the faint sound coming through the door.

And then he enters.

Yuri’s standing in the middle of the room, eyes closed and violin tucked under his chin. He’s playing a series of notes, less than a minute long, over and over. Quick, sharp, like they could knock the breath from your lungs.

It’s not much, but. It’s something, and it’s -- _good._

Otabek closes the door quietly, sets down his bag haphazardly as he watches Yuri play. Sitting down beside his stuff, he lets himself get lost in the repetitive sound, trying to imagine what he might play alongside it -- so much so that he startles when Yuri stops playing and speaks.

“What do you think?”

Otabek recovers himself, opening his eyes to see Yuri staring down at him searchingly.

“I like it,” he says honestly, and Yuri grins.

“Good.” Yuri stacks the violin and bow on their case, then reaches down to the (much smaller this time) mess of papers around him. He picks up one sheet and hands it to Otabek. “This is what I’ve got so far.”

Otabek looks at the sheet music, the carefully arranged notes. Sounds them in his head.

“I like it,” he says again, with a grin to match Yuri’s.

It’s not much, but it’s a start.

 

Two weeks later, they’re back to the same cycle.

They’ve made a little progress, true; Yuri has half a minute’s worth of music composed now, a tune that starts out sharp and cutting, then evens out to a fine edge. But nothing Otabek comes up with seems to complement it, and Yuri is stuck thinking about how to change the tempo later on.

The short segment that Yuri’s produced has been recorded and plays on loop while they think, Otabek at the piano and Yuri on the floor nearby, leaning against the bench. At first it’s helpful, prompting Otabek to think of tunes to balance it out. But with each passing idea sounding not-quite-right, it gets more and more frustrating.

It shows on Yuri too; his skin is paler than usual, his attitude less sharp. Otabek’s half-certain he’s been overexerting himself trying to come up with a continuation to what he’s already written. It’s equal parts admirable and exasperating, Yuri’s stubbornness.

But when Otabek turns to Yuri to ask what he thinks about this latest attempt, he finds the boy has fallen asleep. He’s slumped against the bench, head lolled on the thin cushion. The papers have slipped from his slack grip. The steady rise and fall of his chest is a sharp contrast to the violin sequence still playing in the background.

It strikes something in Otabek, makes something warm bloom in his chest. A tiny smile tugs at the corners of his lips as he looks at Yuri, who mumbles something in his sleep. As carefully and quietly as he can, Otabek reaches down to turn off the music from Yuri’s phone. He considers moving Yuri to somewhere more comfortable, but also doesn’t want to wake him.

He settles for draping his jacket over Yuri, before returning to the piano keys. He taps one finger lightly against a white key, feels his concentration drifting. He’s spent the better part of the week trying to find an appropriate accompanying melody, and he feels a little wrung-out.

Beside him, on the floor, Yuri shifts a little in his sleep. Like this, his face has lost some of its sharpness, like the angles have been softened. Like this boy doesn’t contain a tempest of genius and tenacity inside of him, brought alive on the violin. It’s a little strange to see him so quiet, but Otabek prefers to let him rest.

Offhandedly, the song he’d been playing when Yuri had first chanced on him in this music room comes to mind. It’s not much of a song, truth be told, just the beginning of something Otabek hasn’t yet given full form to. But he plays it over again in his head, fingers running soundlessly over the keys in shadow movements.

Without thinking, softly, [he starts to play](https://youtu.be/sZsVeZYgIiE).

(Or perhaps, not quite without thinking; perhaps he _is_ thinking, not of the music, but of the boy on the floor beside him, quiet in his sleep. For this afternoon, for now, Otabek decides not to look further. He stays with the music.)

A sleep-soft sound from beside him catches his attention. When he looks down, Yuri is starting to wake.

“Sorry,” Otabek says, slowing his hands to a stop. “Did I wake you?”

Yuri starts to shake his head, but halfway through he’s interrupted by a yawn. One hand comes up to rub the sleep from his eyes, the other stretched in front of him. Like this, he reminds Otabek of a sleepy cat.

“It’s okay,” Yuri mumbles, slumping back against the piano bench. His hair covers his face, so Otabek can’t see his expression, but Yuri’s voice is soft. “You can keep playing.”

Otabek’s hand reaches out, as if to ruffle Yuri’s hair. Halfway there he hesitates, then places both hands back on the piano. The tiny sounds Yuri makes as he settles back into his nap -- Otabek has to smile.

“As you wish.”

 

The next week, early afternoon on a Tuesday, they’re back in the room. The short violin segment is playing on loop. Yuri is muttering notes under his breath, tapping his pen on the floor. Otabek stares at the sheet music until the notations blur together, listlessly playing a series of notes. His head hurts.

“It still doesn’t sound right,” Yuri snaps, shoving the sheet music away.

The tiny music room feels claustrophobic. Otabek feels antsy. Abruptly, he stops playing, almost hitting Yuri with the piano bench as he gets up. The glare Yuri gives him as he comes round would slice through steel.

“We’re taking a break,” Otabek declares, prising the pen from Yuri’s grip. Even under Yuri’s furious gaze, he doesn’t relent.

They have a staring contest for a few moments, Yuri irate and Otabek resolute. Then Yuri huffs and gracelessly gets to his feet.

“Fine,” he says shortly, dusting himself off. “But we’re back to work tomorrow.”

 

(He almost changes his mind at the sight of Otabek’s satisfied smirk.)

 

They head out for a walk, setting out in some arbitrary direction. Outside the confines of the music practice room, Otabek feels like he can breathe a little easier. At the very least, fresh air and a short change of pace will cool their heads. He and Yuri wander in silence for a while, bumping into each other occasionally as the pedestrian traffic jostles them. The holidays and winter are settling in, the cold nipping at their exposed skin.

The next time Otabek looks, the tension in Yuri’s shoulders does seem to have dissipated somewhat. He counts this as a win.

He’s about to ask if they should head back, or if there’s somewhere Yuri wants to go, when Yuri stops with a tiny frown on his face.

Otabek raises his eyebrows.

“I forgot I haven’t eaten,” Yuri says sheepishly, arms around his middle. And it’s so unexpected, so random, it actually makes Otabek burst out laughing.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says when he’s calmed down, while Yuri glowers at him from under a fringe of sunshine hair. “Come on, let’s look for somewhere to eat.”

 

The café they end up at is some ways away from the campus, down a side street. Otabek thinks Mila and Sara live nearby. The place is small, cozy, with an old piano tucked by the pastry display. Otabek huffs a small laugh when he sees it.

“Go ahead,” he tells Yuri, then makes his way to the piano. There’s a little dust on the top, but it seems well-maintained, and when Otabek plays an experimental scale he finds it’s perfectly in tune. There’s a little note taped to the upper panel.

 _Play me!,_ it says, with a little smiley face.

Somewhere behind him, he can hear Yuri place his order, can hear the light chatter of the other customers and the faint sounds of traffic outside. On an impulse, he pulls out the seat and gets settled, running one hand over the keys.

Smiling faintly, Otabek starts to play.

 

When Otabek heads straight to the piano, Yuri wonders why he’s even surprised. His friend is always far more free with his music than Yuri has ever been, unafraid to play whenever he comes across a public piano, or fiddling with his guitar in the quad while on break. Yuri takes his hot chocolate and Danish pastry from the barista as Otabek settles himself on the bench. There are a few seats nearby, but Yuri opts to lean against the counter near the piano, letting the heat from his drink seep into his palms.

Otabek’s playing _Für Elise_. The familiar song soothes something in Yuri, unwinding some tension in him that he hadn’t noticed was there.

Then Otabek transitions to [the next piece](https://youtu.be/sZsVeZYgIiE), something Yuri recognizes and yet doesn’t.

Yuri looks at Otabek at the piano, the easy grace of his fingers over the keys, his carefree smile. There’s still a flush on his cheeks from the cold outside; there’s a crinkle at the corners of his eyes. The notes are light, sweet; Yuri feels them settle between his ribs like the warmth from a mug of hot sbiten.

Otabek looks up at meets his eyes, and his fingers falter. His mouth opens as if to ask Yuri something, but Yuri preempts him, shaking his head.

“Keep playing,” he commands.

There is a pause, then Otabek grins, breaks their gaze to turn back to the piano.

“As you wish,” he says, and resumes the music.

 

Later, when Yuri is in his room after dinner, sitting on the floor by his bed, he plays back the scene from the afternoon: Otabek at the piano, the sunlight through the windows, the smell of coffee. He plays the song in his head, light and sweet; feels the fingers of his left hand shift as he tries to think of how he might play along.

 _Just something I’ve been trying to put together,_ Otabek had said when Yuri asked what the last song was. And Yuri remembers these notes now; Otabek had been playing the same song back when Yuri had first walked in on him in the music room.

Yuri flexes his fingers, presses them into the floor.

There is the start of a small idea at the back of his mind.

He gets up, meaning to go to the bathroom and clean up for bed. He can start notating the tune in his head tomorrow, or even later if he can’t sleep.

 

Otabek is in his music theory class when he gets a text from Mila.

 **barbie.cheva** > _baby boy can’t make it so no practice_  
**barbie.cheva** > _well i guess u could do it on ur own but yea_  
**dj.altin** < _oh. thanks._  
**dj.altin** **< **_is he okay? could have told me himself_  
**barbie.cheva** > _don’t worry ur pretty little head_

There’s no further reply. Otabek doesn’t know if he should press.

In the end, he just sends two messages to Yuri, and tells himself that they’ll make up for the time lost when Yuri gets back.

 

 **dj.altin** < _mila passed on the message. i’ll try to come up with smth while you’re out_  
**dj.altin** **< **_hope you’re okay_

 

He doesn’t hear from Yuri until a little more than a week later, when finals period has hit everyone like a freight train. Otabek comes out of his music history class to find Yuri waiting for him with a slightly damp paper bag and a sheepish expression.

“Lunch?” Yuri says, and Otabek should actually, probably review his notes for music theory, but he nods.

They eat in one corner of the building lobby; it’s too cold out to stay in the quad. Yuri’s brought pirozhki that he says were made by his grandfather. They’re... different, Otabek realizes when he bites into one. There’s rice and--

“Pork cutlets,” Yuri clarifies when he catches Otabek frowning at the pastry in his hands. He looks a little embarrassed. “My grandfather had the idea. They’re pretty good.”

“Huh.” Otabek takes another bite and chews thoughtfully. They _are_ good, if a bit unusual. “Why?”

Yuri’s expression pinches as he grabs another pirozhki, picking a bit at the crust. “Victor and his annoying boyfriend let me try katsudon -- it’s this Japanese pork cutlet dish -- and I…” He trails off, scrunching his nose. “Really liked it,” he finishes in a reluctant mumble.

Otabek tries his very best not to laugh. It comes out as a choked sort of sound, with some grains of rice spewing. Yuri looks at him, appalled.

“Sorry,” Otabek half-wheezes when he’s composed himself. Yuri’s recalcitrance is so unexpectedly endearing. “They’re good,” he reassures his friend, reaching out for another pastry.

When he looks up, it’s to the sight of the brightest smile Yuri’s ever given him -- carefree and candid, crinkling the corners of his eyes. There’s a little pink on his cheeks, some crumbs at the corners of his mouth.

“Right?” Yuri says, pulling the paper bag closer to the both of them.

It’s caught Otabek completely off-guard. He stares at Yuri a moment longer, lips slightly parted with a remark he’s forgotten. Then he blinks, shakes his head a little, and hurriedly takes another bite of his food.

It slips his mind to ask why Yuri had been absent, if he’s okay now that he’s back. But Yuri looks well enough, and he doesn’t bring it up either. They part ways at the end of Yuri’s break, agreeing to meet back up for their piece once finals are over and the winter break begins.

 

 **dj.altin** < _when i die you can have my guitar_  
**dj.altin** < _tell potya that even if i never met her she’s the best cat ever_  
**dj.altin** < _i’m sorry we won’t play together at the showcase_  
**icetiger_** > _i’m sure the exam wasn’t that bad_  
**dj.altin** < _tell my mother i love her_  
**icetiger_** > _otabek_  
**dj.altin** < _don’t let jj make the speech at my funeral_

Otabek wakes up the Sunday after his last final after a solid fourteen hours of sleep. He feels a little less like death, and says as much when he replies to Yuri’s invitation to a late lunch.

“I guess I don’t have to stop JJ from making your eulogy,” is Yuri’s deadpan remark when Otabek arrives at the restaurant, five minutes late to their meeting time. Otabek almost slips as he sits, snorting laugh choking off.

“I appreciate that you would have,” he responds with as much dignity as he can muster. The corners of Yuri’s lips quirk where he’s stopping himself from laughing.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” he says as blandly as he can, and Otabek cracks up again.

“Shut up,” he retorts. Yuri shakes his head, dissolving into tiny snickers as Otabek opens his menu so they can order their food.

 

They don’t get much work done in the end, since Otabek has to leave for Almaty on the 20th and Yuri is preparing for a small performance at their local arts center. “As _requested_ by Lilia,” Yuri adds, rolling his eyes, in a tone that informs Otabek just how well Yuri takes to these kinds of _requests._ “I’ll be working on the piece too,” Yuri adds pointedly.

“Of course,” Otabek answers. He’ll do his best, although without Yuri there it’ll be difficult, not to mention his mother will undoubtedly make him assist her with all the preparations for holiday meals and family get-togethers. She’ll also end up making him perform at least once, so Otabek can sympathize.

They lapse into a comfortable silence over their coffee, and Otabek gets distracted by something JJ sends. His attention is pulled back when Yuri makes a small coughing noise. He looks up to find Yuri staring at a point somewhere to Otabek’s left, cheeks a little pink.

Yuri opens his mouth, closes it, fidgets. And then with absolutely no finesse, he shoves a small box across the table, nearly upsetting his mug.

Otabek looks at the box. It’s clumsily wrapped in soft, green paper and tied with a thin black ribbon. There’s a small card with his name scrawled on it and nothing else. Yuri is bright red, the tops of his cheeks and over his nose. His eyes flick nervously from the box to Otabek’s face then away.

Otabek’s never seen him so nervous. It makes his chest feel funny.

Carefully, he takes the box. The paper crinkles under his fingers as he peels it off. The inside is nondescript.

Otabek opens it to find a tiny cat charm on a strap. The little illustration is similar to the one Otabek knows Yuri keeps hooked on his bag, the one based on his cat.

“Since I don’t know if I’ll see you before you leave,” Yuri finally says. “So, uhm. Merry Christmas.”

_Oh._

Something tickles the back of Otabek’s throat. When he parts his lips to say thank you, it comes out as a laugh. The flush on Yuri’s face abruptly deepens, and he looks like he’s about to get up, so Otabek hastily tries to compose himself.

“No -- no, sorry, it’s fine,” he says, and he’s still grinning so wide his cheeks hurt. Yuri glares at him furiously and it almost sets him off again. “It’s fine, I promise,” he continues, and his expression softens. There’s something warm in his chest. “I love it, Yura. Thank you.”

His friend fiddles with the cuffs of his leopard-print jacket for a few more moments before he sniffs and eyes Otabek warily. “Really?”

“Yes.” Otabek doesn’t know how to explain that the tiny gift makes him so _happy._ “I really do, Yura.” He turns the little charm over with his fingers, smiles across the table. “Sorry, I didn’t bring anything for you today.”

Yuri waves it off. “Just give me something when you get back,” he says (and it’s not even a question; his blithe certainty has Otabek covering up another laugh with a discreet cough). “Mila made that, though.”

Otabek blinks up in surprise. “She did?”

“Yeah.” There’s pride in Yuri’s expression now, and fondness. “She made mine too. She does these things sometimes, and she sells them. It’s pretty cool.” He grins. “This one’s custom, though.”

“I’ll remember to say thank you,” Otabek replies with a chuckle. He turns that over in his head, the fact that Yuri had gone to Mila to ask her to make another cat charm, specifically for him.

Otabek’s never thought he’d feel legitimately giddy about something, but.

Yuri’s looking at him, so _happy,_ and Otabek thinks there might be very little he wouldn’t do to see that expression again.

 

 **dj.altin** < _i didn’t think you could make things that were actually cute_  
**dj.altin** < _but i like the cat_  
**barbie.cheva** > _don’t make me take it back_

 **icetiger_** < _he liked it_  
**barbie.cheva** > _told u_  
**icetiger_** < _shut up_

 

He ends up getting Yuri three presents in return, over the break -- a scarf with tiny cat paw prints, a postcard from Almaty, and a mixtape. The last one he’d made himself, nights spent carefully going through his music collection to pick tracks that he thinks Yuri will like, or ones he wants Yuri to listen to. It’s worth it to see the soft, wondering look on Yuri’s face as he turns the CD case over, reading over the song list.

“Thanks, Mr. DJ,” Yuri says wryly, but his smile is sincere. He places the postcard and CD carefully into his bag, wraps the scarf around his neck and tugs it over his nose and mouth. It’s a ridiculously endearing gesture.

“I hope you like it,” Otabek admits, scratching at his undercut.

With half his face hidden, Yuri’s expression is inscrutable as he looks at Otabek, but there’s something soft in his eyes.

“I will.”

 

The second semester begins, and with that comes the resumption of their work on the composition piece. The due date for submitting their entry looms over them. Otabek hadn’t made much progress over the break, as expected, while Yuri still can’t seem to settle on a sound he likes. Which means they’re back to afternoons spent staring at sheet music, listening to what they’ve made so far, and racking their brains for any fragments of melody they can come up with.

Otabek lies on his back, burning a hole in the acoustic ceiling tiles with his gaze, while Yuri paces back and forth and grumbles.

Frustration is a familiar friend, now.

Then three weeks after school starts, Yuri bursts into the music room like a whirlwind, startling Otabek from where he’d been sitting by the piano, frowning down at his sheet music. There’s -- entirely too many visual cues for Otabek to process: Yuri’s pale skin spotted and flushed red, his bright eyes, his parted lips; his chest heaving as he catches his breath; his disheveled clothing, his hair in disarray. Yuri shoves a handful of papers at Otabek before unceremoniously dropping most of his things to the floor.

“Listen,” he says, voice shaking in -- excitement. He’s smiling, open-mouthed and thrilled.

Otabek spares a glance at the papers. It’s sheet music, done in Yuri’s sharp handwriting, tiny comments and marks littering the notations. He watches Yuri fumble his violin case open, clumsy in his haste.

“Listen,” Yuri says again, and then he lifts the violin to his shoulder.

 

Given that it’s a violin piece with a piano accompaniment, only half of a whole, the sound is -- objectively -- incomplete. It sounds as much, as Yuri’s playing peters out here and there, softening in some parts before rising in others. Otabek can tell where he’s supposed to feature more heavily, where he takes the back seat to the violin. He can perceive the _lack._

Yuri still knocks the breath out of him as he plays.

It’s _good._ It starts off intense, sharp and hard-hitting, and then Otabek is unprepared for when it evens out to something smoother and melodious. It tugs at him, rising and tremulous -- and then hurtles into a revision of the opening sequence, fervent, powerful.

[The piece is stunning.](https://open.spotify.com/track/4goGoOCRx4USRRteJfpQjR?si=6zs6hBqsQDKTIBSzACUzyg) It’s -- _compelling,_ potent; like the onset of a thunderstorm, electric and resonant. And it sounds like it’s _theirs._

Yuri had said, when they’d just been starting: the musician needs to erase themselves from the performance, the music; play only what is needed, what is meant to be heard. But this is an original composition, it’s _their_ composition, and there is no hiding in this. Not for either of them.

This piece is Yuri, in everything -- the high, sharp notes; the quick, sliding sequences and lilting melodies; the crescendo and climax. This is how he wants to sound, a melody to make the world stop and hear him.

_I’ll make them listen to me._

Yuri draws out the last note, ends the way he always does: a sharp draw of his bow, arm flung out. He stands there for a moment, steadying himself. And even if he’d only been listening, Otabek too feels out of breath, wrung out, caught up in the music.

Then Yuri turns to look at him, and he doesn’t have to ask. Otabek gets to his feet, grinning so hard his cheeks hurt.

“That was--” he starts to say, but he can’t find it in him to sum up how he feels, like there is a supernova in his lungs. “You--”

Yuri looks at him, bright and open and so, so beautiful.

“You’re amazing,” Otabek says, as sincerely as he can. It’s horribly inadequate, but he doesn’t have much else.

Apparently it’s still enough, because Yuri laughs, loose-limbed and easy. He sets down the violin and surprises Otabek by throwing slender arms around his shoulders and pulling him in for a hug.

“Thank you,” Yuri murmurs, soft and heartfelt.

After some hesitation, Otabek tentatively wraps his arms around Yuri’s waist. Cradles him for a moment and doesn’t press his nose into sunshine hair. Yuri leaning against him feels so deceptively easy.

 

Otabek thinks, _I should have kissed him._

 

Yuri works with him on the piano accompaniment, talking Otabek through how he wants it to sound, even writing out whole measures. It’s -- difficult, admittedly, and a sharp learning curve, but Otabek pushes through it. He wants this to work, wants them to complete this.

He wants to play alongside Yuri, once and again and again. If it means spending all his free time in the music room, staying as late as he dares, as many nights as he can -- fine. It’s worth it; Yuri is worth it.

They don’t have a name for their piece yet, so they’ve taken to just calling it _Allegro Appassionato_ (“in B Minor”, Yuri always tacks on, for accuracy). And measure by measure, it comes together. Otabek has finally found a good sound, a mix of almost-staccato and successions of notes that almost blend together. He’s taken some inspiration from the Samarkand Overture, but the higher register makes the sound sharper -- less like a battle axe, more like a finely-honed rapier.

Two weeks after Yuri presents the finished violin piece, Mila finds him again with an apologetic smile. And Otabek tries to press, asks what’s wrong.

“It’s fine,” Mila says, patting his cheek.

Otabek frowns and bats her hand away. The gesture feels condescending, like she’s mollifying a stubborn child. Her assurance feels thin. “What’s going on,” he tries again.

Something flickers in Mila’s eyes before she purses her lips and shakes her head. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

 _And nothing for you to know,_ she doesn’t add, but Otabek hears it anyway. The strength of his frustration surprises him a little, but it -- hurts, to be kept in the dark, to always just be waiting.

And Mila likely sees it on his face, because her expression softens and she pulls up a tired smile. “I’m sorry,” she says, and Otabek can see that she means it. “He’ll be back soon, he just isn’t feeling well.”

It still feels short of a proper explanation, but it’s also all he’s going to get. He sighs, then nods.

“Fine.”

 

Yuri returns to practice three days later. And Otabek looks him over, trying to see if he’s worse for the wear, searching for something, anything. But Yuri just gives him a wan smile and says he’s just overtired from pushing himself too hard.

“You should take better care of yourself,” Otabek says with a frown. Yuri’s words don’t sit right with him, but pushing the issue doesn’t get him much else.

“I’ll be _fine_ ,” Yuri asserts, and it’s the way he says it -- like he’s trying to make it real, make it convincing. There’s an edge to it that makes Otabek want to press, but then Yuri’s hauling the sheet music towards himself and starting to talk. And then they’re both diving back into their composition, and Yuri comes up with an inspired sequence, and Otabek’s questions fall away.

 

(And perhaps Yuri _is_ trying to convince Otabek, and himself, and everything around him. Like if he says it enough, if he insists he’ll be fine then he’ll make himself fine. Persisting is better than the alternative, and now that he has things -- has Otabek, has the showcase, has their music -- he finds himself desperate to keep them.

He wants this -- to play with Otabek, _their_ composition, on stage. To keep playing, once and again and again.)

 

They finish the piece.

It’s an exhausting run of composing, notating, and playing things out; entirely too many late afternoons in the music room and nights spent playing snippets of melodies until they sound _right._ But it comes together and it gets finished, and Otabek slumps against the piano bench after he’s finished sounding out a particular sequence he’d been a little stuck on. He slumps forward, leaning his forehead against the upper panel of the piano, exhausted.

“Yuri,” he says wearily, trying to turn his head without lifting it, “what did you--”

He cuts himself off when he sees that Yuri is curled up in the middle of their small pile of sheet music, head pillowed on his bag. Otabek watches the soft rise and fall of his chest. Asleep, Yuri looks much softer -- his hair falls over his forehead, lips lightly parted. The exhaustion that usually hangs over him has fallen away; the furrow in his brow is gone, the strain in his expression smoothed out.

Otabek looks at him and the quiet feeling is back in his chest, this slow unfurling of warmth.

He thinks about Yuri and how this boy is all things bright and uncontainable and beautiful. About hair like straw in sunshine, and a laugh like a summer rainstorm.

 _Perhaps this is what it’s like to stand at the edge of a cliff,_ Otabek thinks, and almost laughs.

 

They finish the piece, and afterwards comes an exhausting run of rehearsing it again and again and again. They work out the nuances, the timing; work out how to blend their sounds together seamlessly until their parts come together into a layered melody.

It isn’t easy, but the sound they’re working on is _theirs._ They’ll figure it out.

Otabek sits at the piano and watches Yuri play, go from flurries of movement to slow drags of the bow. He listens, and somehow it is always like the first time he’d heard this boy -- Yuri never sounds any less breathtaking. It never ceases to thrill, to make the air between them run electric. And Otabek works to match that, to give in equal measure. This piece is Yuri, but it’s Otabek too.

The first time they complete a run-through from start to finish, imperfect as it is, Yuri looks at him across the piano, fever-bright eyes and flushed cheeks, mouth open in something almost a smile as he catches his breath. Otabek feels like there are constellations at his fingers, like he breathes galaxies and cosmos.

Neither of them needs to say it. Yuri lifts the violin to his shoulder; Otabek repositions his fingers on the keys.

_Again._

 

They finish the piece, and Otabek loses himself in their shared melodies, and he thinks about how he wants to play with this boy -- not just this once, but again and again. He wants to hear Yuri, to keep listening.

The thing is: wanting something is not the same as having it.

The thing is: wanting something does not make it stay.

 

He should have known better; they should have known better.

Yuri during rehearsals is fantastic and terrifying; uncompromising in his dedication to their practice in a way that seems frantic, almost desperate. Sometimes, Otabek will look at him and feels uncertainty twist his gut, looks and feels somehow like something is chipping away at an immovable object.

But Yuri swears he’s fine, asserts time and again that they need to focus. They may have finished composing the piece but now they need to practice, to refine and adjust. To play again and again until they’re in harmony, until both their parts blend together into a singular piece of music.

Yuri swears he’s fine, and Otabek lets himself believe. It’s not like he isn’t exhausted as well.

It’s Friday afternoon and they’re in the music room, practicing a segment of their piece that’s almost an exchange between their instruments. It’s supposed to alternate, violin and piano, building until their melodies come back together. The timing of their notes has to be precise, and Otabek is still half a beat late.

“One more time,” he says through gritted teeth. He just has to attune himself to Yuri’s playing, anticipate the high note that signals his turn, start playing as soon as it hits.

He lifts his hands to the keys.

Yuri doesn’t move.

It makes Otabek look up, brow furrowed. He feels something lodge in his throat when he sees Yuri’s expression shutter, eyes out of focus. There is a suspended moment, like all the sound has been sucked from the room, between Otabek’s realization that something is very wrong and Yuri’s body going slack.

“Yuri?”

He slumps downwards. The piano seat clatters to the floor as Otabek scrambles to reach in time.

 

_“Yuri!”_


	3. melody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything changes, and Otabek performs.
> 
> _Yuri Plisetsky, are you listening?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **CONTENT WARNING** for **major character death**.
> 
> If you've watched YLIA, you've probably been wondering if this was coming. If you haven't, well, it was always a possibility. The character death is not explicitly stated, the same as in the YLIA anime. 
> 
> Otabek's performance is referenced from three different covers - [here](https://youtu.be/u5iBA3O8QYA), [here](https://youtu.be/P_h5OumvQxs), and [here](https://youtu.be/kbqXzh2OSOg). They all have different flavors, and I imagine his performance to be a combination of the atmospheres of each piece.

* * *

 

 

Despite having been friends for over a semester now, Otabek hasn’t yet met Yuri’s grandfather. He knows that the man is Yuri’s only family -- Katarina Plisetsky had left her child in the care of her father and never looked back, and Yuri has never mentioned his other parent. And Otabek knows that Yuri’s grandfather watches all his performances, although he’d only ever seen the man that one time, before they’d performed at the open show.

Nikolai Plisetsky cuts an imposing figure in the small hospital room, strong posture and a gruff expression. He converses quietly with the doctor to the side, while Otabek sits in an uncomfortable plastic chair beside the hospital bed. Yuri is tucked in the sheets, hooked up to an IV and sleeping.

Otabek watches the soft rise and fall of Yuri’s chest. It’s irrational, but it feels like if he looks away, Yuri might stop breathing. Might be gone.

Surrounded by clinical white and medical equipment, Yuri looks -- small.

There’s a rustle, and when Otabek glances up, the doctor is leaving the room and Nikolai is turning to where his grandson lies, hair fanning out over the white pillow. There’s a weariness and resignation to his expression that makes Otabek realize, belatedly, this is not an unfamiliar sight.

He doesn’t know what to think of that. Everything feels too surreal, at the moment, like things haven’t quite caught up to him so he’s not too sure they’ve really happened. Like he’s very precariously balanced at a height. He wants to do -- something, brush Yuri’s hair from his forehead, fix the blanket, but he’s a little afraid that if he moves, it might shatter something inside him.

It’s Nikolai who acts first.

“You’re the pianist,” he says, and it’s not a question. He’s looking at Otabek like he’s sussing something out, sizing him up. Otabek has to fight not to shrink back under the weight of that gaze.

“Yes,” he says instead. He wonders if he should stand, hold out his hand. He settles for, “Otabek. My name -- it’s Otabek.”

“I know,” Nikolai looks at him a moment longer before sighing, something bone-deep, and turning back to Yuri. He adjusts the blanket, the pillows; smoothes Yuri’s hair back. Gentle, careful hands.

There are too many things Otabek wants to ask, but he doesn’t know if he’s allowed and he wouldn’t know where to begin.

“Will he be all right?” he asks, finally, because it’s as good and as bad as anything.

It’s a while before Nikolai responds.

“He’s strong,” the old man says; it’s both an answer and not.

Otabek looks at Yuri in the hospital bed; thinks of how limp that slender body had been after he’d collapsed. Thinks of Yuri on stage, with his violin, resonant and wondrous.

“Thank you,” Nikolai adds, and in the quiet of his voice there is a heavy sincerity. “For bringing him here. You did well.”

And that -- Otabek isn’t sure how to respond to that. But he understands a dismissal when he hears one, so he stands and nods.

“I--” The words tangle up on his tongue. “When he -- when he gets better, tell him to let me know. When he’s okay.” He swallows. The dry, scratchy feeling in his throat persists. “I’ll be waiting, at the -- at the music room. I’ll be practicing.”

Nikolai looks up at him again with that searching expression. Whatever he sees, Otabek doesn’t know, but after a while Nikolai turns away with a sigh.

“I’ll let him know when he wakes.”

 

Otabek walks back to the campus with too many unanswered questions and uncertainties. He thinks of all the times Yuri had been absent, of Yuri’s feverish, almost-desperation.

He wants to go back to the hospital and ask, to sit there and wait until Yuri wakes, if only to make sure Yuri is still here. To be reassured that Yuri will be fine; that _they’ll_ be fine.

In the end, he does neither. His footsteps take him to the music room. Otabek looks at the piano distractedly, trying to temper the thrum of unease under his skin.

 _It’s fine,_ he tells himself. Yuri will come back, and they’ll resume practice, and Otabek will take better care to ensure Yuri will be fine.

Still, it’s a while before he can bring himself to play.

  


Yuri blinks away to sunlight muted by hospital curtains and the quiet whirr of equipment. When he realizes where he is and what’s happened, he grits his teeth, biting back his frustration and anger. He can’t be back here, not again; he doesn’t want to lose more time.

He still has to play.

There’s a rustle to the side, and for a hysterical moment Yuri thinks it’s Otabek, that his friend has stayed with him at the hospital and he now has to come up with some plausible excuse for why he’s here like this -- but then his grandfather comes into view, brow furrowed and mouth pinched. Yuri looks up at him for a moment before shutting his eyes again and sinking into the sheets.

“How do you feel?” Nikolai asks. A careful hand presses to his forehead, checking for fever or pain.

Yuri considers for a moment. “Tired,” he says, honestly. It’s the most overriding sensation at the moment. He feels weak, wrung out, but it’s not unfamiliar by now.

Exhaling softly, Nikolai lets his touch linger a moment longer before pulling back. “Your friend was the one who brought you here,” he says, frowning down at his grandson. “The pianist.”

So Otabek _had_ been here; he just hadn’t stayed. Yuri knows his grandfather wouldn’t have let him. There would be too many difficult questions and Yuri wouldn’t know how to answer them, if he would even want to.

“Did you tell him?” he asks, hesitant, apprehensive.

The corners of his grandfather’s eyes soften, and Yuri looks away so he doesn’t have to face the sadness he knows is there, the disquiet. He’s lost count of how many times he’s wished that he could stop being the cause of pain on his grandfather’s face.

“No,” Nikolai says, like a mercy.

Yuri’s throat tightens. He squeezes his eyes shut against their sudden dampness.

“Okay.”

 

Later, when he’s propped up by several pillows and running through a series of grip exercises, Yuri breathes, trying to settle himself, and says, “I don’t want to tell him.”

Nikolai’s careworn hands come up carefully to steady his grandson’s fingers.

“If you think it’s for the best.”

  


Yuri comes back to school after four days, a little pale and a little strained. Otabek meets him in the music room and asks if he’s all right, if anything’s wrong. But Yuri brushes him off, says he’ll be fine. He protests when Otabek insists on ending their practices well before dinner, asserting that they’re running out of time.

Slender hands shake under Otabek’s palms as he pries the bow from Yuri’s grip, tries to calm him. Too many things about Yuri feel brittle nowadays. Foolishly, naively, Otabek thinks that maybe if he’s a little more gentle, a little more careful, they can fix this. He watches Yuri sleep in the music room, head pillowed on his bag, covered by Otabek’s jacket, and thinks, _maybe things will be better now._ If they’re careful, if they just -- if they _try,_ things will work out. They know better now. They’ll do better.

 

It doesn’t get better.

 

As a violinist, Yuri has always prided himself in his skill. Thousands of hours of practice, of training, of Lilia making him repeat scales and melodies over and over, have sharpened his technique into a study of precision and execution. _Perfection,_ that had been Lilia’s standard; perfect adherence to score, perfect production of sound.

Yuri’s fingers stutter over the violin strings, and that carefully-honed precision begins to fall away.

 

Otabek watches Yuri grit his teeth in frustration after he makes another mistake, after he misses a cue or slips on a note. If he were stronger, less terrified, perhaps he would reach out and pull Yuri against his chest, hold him there until the shaking stopped, until the restlessness bled out. Perhaps he’d press his mouth to sunshine hair and murmur soft things until the boy in his arms quieted.

Yuri would never let him.

They keep trying to practice. The composure Yuri wears like a veneer starts to chip away. Otabek tries to shut the worry in his lungs and wants more than anything not to be so helpless.

What little he can do, he does. He brings Yuri food; drapes his jacket over Yuri while he naps in the music room. He lets Yuri sit beside him on the piano bench, leaning against Otabek and quietly watching his fingers move over the keys. He takes Yuri’s violin from him when the frustration spills over, takes Yuri’s hands and holds them until they stop shaking.

He plays, easy and soft, every time Yuri asks. He gives everything he has to offer.

Perhaps if he tries, it will be enough.

 

On a Friday, Otabek leaves class a little late, staying back to ask his professor a few questions about the lecture. Outside the classroom the sky is a muted grey, even if spring is coming along. As he crosses the quad, he wonders idly if it’s going to rain.

When he arrives, the door to the music room is slightly ajar. Otabek hasn’t even entered, but he already knows something is very wrong. He can hear the sound of a violin -- serrated, imprecise, painful. Short, grating notes that stutter and falter and break abruptly. It sounds _wrong._

Otabek shoves the door open in time to see Yuri throw his bow to the floor and, in a sharp snarl of anger, stomp down on it, snapping it clean in two.

Yuri stands under the harsh fluorescent lights of the room, head bowed and shoulders heaving. His breathing comes in half-strangled, almost-sobs. His left hand grips his violin so tight that Otabek’s afraid he’ll damage it

Abruptly, Yuri drops to his knees, cradling his violin in his lap.

When Otabek comes closer, he realizes Yuri’s shaking.

 

It haunts his vision well into the early evening, when he’s alone -- the sight of Yuri kneeling on the floor, clutching his violin, teeth gritted and eyes damp. Hands clenched tight to stop the trembling. Inhales choked in his throat.

Otabek tries to play sections of their piece on the piano. He wants to drown out Yuri’s voice in his head, the helplessness and desperation, things that don’t belong to the way Yuri should sound.

_I can’t._

Otabek presses his fingers to the keys harder and tries to remember how to breathe.

_I can’t play._

His hands stutter, close into fists. Otabek curls in on himself, presses his forehead to the upper panel of the piano.

Yuri had sounded so small.

 _This isn’t fair,_ Otabek thinks, as his frustration spills over and he blinks wetness from his eyes. It isn’t fair; Yuri doesn’t deserve this. That bright, beautiful boy with a loose-limbed laugh, with eyes like the shallow ocean, whose melody could bring the world to a standstill -- Yuri doesn’t deserve to have music taken away from him.

But those slender, practice-worn hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

It isn’t fair.

 

This time, it’s Yuri who comes to him.

There’s a soft, tentative knock on the door to his dorm room, well into the evening. Otabek blinks up from where he’d been going through some readings for class, surprised. At first he thinks it’s JJ, but his friend is rarely so polite, usually preferring to bang once before letting himself in.

Otabek rubs the exhaustion from his eyes and stands up, crossing the small room.

Yuri stands in the hallway outside, fiddling with the cuff of his jacket sleeve.

“Oh,” Otabek says, eyes widening in surprise.

“I--” Yuri pinches his mouth shut, then grimaces. “Can I come in?”

“Uh.” Otabek looks over his shoulder; his room isn’t -- particularly neat at the moment, with the pile of clothes in a corner that stands in as a hamper, and the papers all over his desk, and his unmade bed.

There’s a soft huff, and when Otabek looks back, there’s something close to amusement in Yuri’s eyes. “I don’t mind,” he points out. His fingers won’t stop tugging, fidgeting.

“Okay,” Otabek concedes, and steps back to let his friend in.

Having Yuri in his room is a bit of a surreal experience; he doesn’t seem to _fit,_ looks out of place sitting cross-legged on Otabek’s blue-and-white patterned sheets. Otabek’s about to take the desk chair when Yuri pats the space in front of him.

There’s a long, poignant silence after Otabek sits down. In the tiny room, it’s suffocating.

Yuri keeps his head down when he finally speaks.

“I’m sorry.”

Otabek’s about to ask, or maybe protest, but Yuri holds up a hand and finally meets Otabek’s gaze. Those stunning eyes are red-rimmed, purpling eyebags underneath. There’s a tired, brittle smile pulling up at the corners of Yuri’s mouth.

“I won’t,” Yuri says, and he sounds like he’s trying so hard to be steady, “be able to play with you.”

Otabek looks at where Yuri is gripping the sheets. He reaches out, takes a slender hand in his. Smoothes his thumbs over soft skin; feels the callouses against his palm.

There’s just eight weeks left to the showcase.

“I’m sorry,” Yuri says again, and Otabek wants to say _no, you don’t have to be, I swear_ but the words don’t come out. He digs his fingers a little harder into Yuri’s hand as Yuri keeps talking. “I’m going to -- I’ll have to stay at the hospital, for a while. It’s -- I’m not--”

Otabek tightens his grip on Yuri’s hand before the boy can pull away. He looks up to see Yuri watching him, expression wrecked and anxious. He looks so terribly young. Otabek wants to pull him down to the bed, struck by the absurd idea that perhaps he can hide Yuri from the world and keep him safe, right here.

Instead, he tries to find a smile, unsteady as it feels.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll be here when you come back.”

He doesn’t mind waiting, so long as Yuri comes back.

Yuri squeezes Otabek’s hand, and looks at him, and a little of that almost-desperation seems to have faded.

Otabek doesn’t think about how even under his grip, Yuri had been shaking.

 

Yuri has been at the hospital for a week when Otabek is finally allowed to visit.

He’s so nervous it feels ridiculous, standing outside the hospital room with a box of cake in hand and trying to resist the urge to fix his collar. He hadn’t known what else to bring.

He knocks once, twice.

It’s Nikolai who answers.

Otabek feels a moment of genuine fear in which he considers simply turning on his heel and leaving. But then Nikolai smiles and beckons him inside. “Come in. He hasn’t stopped talking about you all morning.”

“ _Dedushka._ ” Otabek smothers a laugh at the sound of Yuri’s mortified voice. He enters to find Yuri sitting up on the hospital bed, propped up by several pillows, a book in his lap. Yuri grins as he sets it aside.

“My grandfather’s lying,” he says, rolling his eyes.

Otabek takes a moment to look -- at the IV that runs down to Yuri’s left hand, the small assortment of monitors around the bed, the thin blue shirt that Yuri wears. He flicks his eyes back to Yuri’s face and smiles, holding up the box in his hands as he moves forward.

“I brought cake,” he says, a little self-conscious. Yuri’s face lights up.

“Thank _god,_ ” he says, reaching his hands out. Otabek hands him the box, watching in amusement as Yuri almost tears it open. There are two slices inside, chocolate mousse and blueberry cheesecake. Yuri swipes a large mouthful of the mousse and sighs happily. “Hospital food is so gross. I haven’t had real food in forever.”

“It’s supposed to be healthy, Yurochka,” Nikolai chides from across the room.

“That doesn’t mean it can’t actually have _taste,_ ” Yuri retorts, wrinkling his nose. He takes another bite, then seems to remember there’s two slices and someone else in the room. He sets the cake box down on the bed sheepishly. Otabek presses his lips together so he doesn’t laugh.

“It’s fine,” he says fondly, nudging the box back to Yuri. “I brought these for you.”

“And we can share,” Yuri says, matter-of-fact. He hands Otabek the other fork, then goes back to eating and making satisfied noises and ignoring his grandfather’s chastising looks.

Otabek ends up staying a few hours, telling Yuri about school and JJ’s new project and Isabella’s spoken word performance. He listens to Nikolai speak up every once in a while with a story about Yuri, which more than once make Yuri flush in embarrassment and chagrin. As the afternoon wears on, however, Yuri becomes visibly more tired, yawning and slumping back against his pillows.

“I should go,” Otabek finally says, standing from where he’d been perched at the foot of Yuri’s bed. Yuri starts to protest, but he’s cut off by another yawn that makes Otabek chuckle. He takes the empty cake box, picks up his jacket. Nikolai had returned home a little while ago.

“You’ll come back, right?” Yuri asks, bottom lip caught between his teeth.

“Of course,” Otabek answers, and Yuri exhales in relief.

“Thank you,” he says, with a small smile. And then, more playfully, “bring food again, next time.”

Otabek snorts and pretends to chuck the cake box at Yuri, who grins back, unrepentant.

“As you wish,” he says, then he turns to leave.

 

He comes back a few days later, and again. And each time he looks at Yuri, searches for something, anything that will tell him how he’s doing. Because under Yuri’s laughter and chatter, he still looks pale and tired. It’s only Nikolai’s presence that stops Otabek from reaching out to see if Yuri’s wrists are as thin as he thinks. The insides of his elbows are littered with marks where Otabek knows the hospital staff has drawn blood.

But Yuri smiles, teases Otabek, pretends to hoard the cake and almost cries when Otabek brings him a ham and cheese Danish. He asks about JJ, about Isabella and Leo (and not about Victor, although Nikolai has mentioned that both he and Katsuki have visited). He tells Otabek about the times Mila has dropped by to visit, sometimes bringing Sara with her.

It’s during one of these afternoons that Otabek comes to a decision over an idea he’s half-entertained since he’d first come to visit. It’ll take a little work, but.

But there’s something he wants to say, has been meaning to say, since he’d looked at this bright, uncontainable boy and realized there was so much more to him than his music.

He hopes Yuri will hear it.

 

He finds Mila in the studio again. She’s standing in front of a canvas that’s half-covered in paint. She looks up as Otabek approaches, eyes widening when she recognizes him.

“I need you to do me a favor,” Otabek says in a rush, before she can even ask him what he’s doing here.

Mila blinks, pulls back a little. Her brow furrows, first in confusion, then suspicion. But Otabek simply meets her searching gaze and waits for her answer.

“This is going to be for him, isn’t it,” she says eventually, because of course it is. Mila knows them both.

“Yes,” Otabek answers.

She looks at him a few moments longer.

“Please,” Otabek adds (and it’s one more reminder, because Yuri had said some things similar, all those months ago).

Mila sighs.

“Fine,” she says, and Otabek closes his eyes, relieved. Mila exhales a small smile and rests her hands on her hips, shifting her weight. “I care about him too, you know.”

“I know,” Otabek agrees, because she truly does. It’s why he’s come to her.

Mila reaches out and taps his cheek, corner of her mouth turned up.

“So, pretty boy, what do you need?”

 

Otabek spends the next few weeks using all of his free time to practice. He’d slacked off after Yuri had been hospitalized, but he picks back up now with a fervor. It feels wrong, without Yuri there beside him, feels lacking without the violin. The music room feels empty, the piano melody too loud. But Otabek persists.

And if sometimes he finds himself half-turning, about to ask Yuri what he thinks, he simply swallows down the unease and returns his fingers to the keys.

 _Again,_ and the music comes.

 

The day before the showcase, Otabek visits the hospital again. The staff on duty are familiar with him by now; he waves as he walks by the nurse station on his way to Yuri’s room. He’s brought an assortment of pastries this time -- some small squares of cake, some brownies, a handful of _pastilas_ that he’d saved from a few days ago.

Nikolai isn’t in the room, so Otabek lets himself in. He finds Yuri on the bed, watching YouTube videos on his phone. He looks up distractedly at the door, expression brightening when he realizes it’s Otabek standing there.

“Beka!” he says, setting his phone down with a smile. They fall into their familiar routine; Otabek hoists himself up onto the foot of Yuri’s bed while Yuri inspects the package of food. He’s particularly excited about the _pastilas,_ eating two straight away before Otabek can even make himself comfortable.

If they hadn’t been in a hospital room, if there hadn’t been an IV in one hand and a bandage on the other, if Yuri hadn’t looked so tired, it might have just been another afternoon spent together. Otabek thinks back to the last time they’d had lunch at the quad, Yuri studying their sheet music intensely, sandwich forgotten in his hand.

Something must show on his face, because Yuri sets the pastry box down and frowns. “Beka?” he asks. One hand reaches forward, hesitant. “Is something wrong?”

Otabek blinks out of his sentimental reverie and shakes his head. “It’s fine,” he says, and tries to smile. “I just -- I want to tell you something.”

Yuri hasn’t mentioned the showcase once, since telling Otabek that he wouldn’t be able to play. Neither of them have mentioned it, for all that it sits as the elephant in the room. There are too many reasons for them to avoid it -- it hurts too much, feels like poking a bruise, reminds them both of the things gone wrong.

Now, though, with Yuri looking at him expectantly -- and perhaps a little warily -- Otabek plunges right in.

“Tomorrow,” he says, hands fidgeting with the bedsheets, “I’m not -- I won’t be visiting tomorrow.”

Yuri’s frown deepens.

Otabek smiles and takes his hand.

“I have a performance tomorrow, see,” he continues, rubbing a thumb on the skin just under the IV. “It’s very important, and I can’t miss it. I’ve been preparing for it for months now.”

“Beka--” Yuri looks at him, guilty and pained. But Otabek shakes his head again, squeezes Yuri’s hand once, briefly.

“I want to do this,” he tells Yuri, as honestly and openly as he can. “For the both of us.”

He keeps his hand in Yuri’s until Yuri looks down, hair falling forward to cover his face. Until Yuri nods, squeezes his hand in return.

Otabek feels some of the anxiety in his bones ebb away, and he leans forward to press a soft, careful kiss to Yuri’s hair.

“I swear,” he says, steady and certain, “I’ll be fantastic.”

Yuri’s laugh comes up hiccupy and wet. His hand is shaking.

“You’d better be,” he retorts, and when he finally looks up, there’s a wavering smile on his face. He takes a deep breath and grips Otabek’s hand tighter. “You’d better knock them all breathless.”

Otabek grins.

“As you wish.”

  


Saturday morning is chilly and grey. Briefly, Otabek considers dropping by the hospital again before going to the auditorium, but thinks better of it. Anything he has left to say, he can say through his music.

He gets ready slowly, carefully. His hands shake as he buttons up his shirt, does up his bowtie. He pockets his phone, picks up his bag with the sheet music and the rest of his things.

He’s as ready as he’ll ever be.

 

Backstage at the auditorium is full of chatter, but Otabek keeps to himself, leaning against a wall in one of the side corridors. He’s seen Katsuki and Nikiforov in one of the dressing rooms, quietly making preparations. Leo’s already come by to wish him luck. Otabek curls and uncurls his fingers, trying to shake off the anxiety thrumming under his skin.

He startles when his phone buzzes in his pocket.

 **king_jj** _ > we’re good to go!! _ _  
_ **king_jj** _ > break a leg _

**barbie.cheva** > _all set, pretty boy_

Otabek reads the messages twice, then closes his eyes. Breathes in, out.

The sheet music they’d worked on so carefully is tucked in a folder in his bag. He has his part perfectly memorized.

He knows what he wants to tell Yuri.

“Next act!” the staff calls, and Otabek opens his eyes. Straightens.

Walks forward.

 

In the hospital, alone in his room, Yuri answers a call from Mila with some confusion. He brings the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“He wants you to listen,” Mila says simply, slightly tinny through the speakers.

Yuri stills for a moment, holding the phone with both hands like he’s afraid to drop it. Tries to swallow the apprehension in his throat. His heart suddenly feels too big for his chest.

“Okay,” he says. He sets the phone down on the bed in front of him, puts it on loudspeaker and turns the volume up as high as he can. He can hear the audience chatter, JJ’s cheers, Isabella’s soft voice.

“Davai,” he murmurs, and hopes Otabek can feel that.

 

The lone piano sits on stage. From there, the audience is half-blurred by the bright lights, a comforting view. Otabek bows, takes his seat. Adjusts the seat. Arranges his sheet music.

Takes one, deep breath.

_(Listen to me.)_

He brings his fingers to the keys, and closes his eyes. In the corner of his mind, someone stands to his right, violin in hand, with hair like starlight under the stage lights.

(Always without a cue, just the space of a heartbeat, and then the music.)

He begins.

 

The first notes draw some surprised murmurs and intakes of breath from the audience. It starts slow, one-handed, soft. Then two hands, blending into each other, high and haunting. Pianissimo; crescendo, stretto; into forte.

 _On Love: Agape,[piano arrangement](https://youtu.be/u5iBA3O8QYA)_. Paralleled to Yuri’s performance, all those months ago; arranged by Otabek over late nights and quiet afternoons. High and haunting, with tiny adjustments, tiny changes, to make it _their_ sound. To tell Yuri everything.

(The piece they composed sits in his bag, still tucked in the folder. He cannot play it, not yet. It can wait, until Yuri is better, until Yuri is on the stage and playing alongside him.)

Otabek plays (mezzo-piano now, stringendo) and he thinks of a warm laugh; of slender, calloused fingers clutching a bow. He thinks of everything he wants to tell this boy, about his music and his temper and about how he makes Otabek’s heart feel too big for his whole self. He hopes Yuri can hear this, even just a little, in this piece.

_(Yuri Plisetsky, are you listening?)_

He can hear Yuri’s voice in his head, after their first performance together, _I can’t stop shaking._ Can picture the fever-bright look in Yuri’s eyes; the way his whole body moves when he plays, so in tune with his violin. Fingers dancing over the strings. Eyes like the shallow ocean. Hair like starlight under the stage lights.

He hopes he can see that again, can hear Yuri again.

But until Yuri has music returned to him, Otabek will be the one to play.

Otabek’s fingers dance over the keys as he tells Yuri with each note: _I want more time together, on the stage, in the music room, in cafés and the school quad. I want more time with you._

_I want to play with you, over and over, every song we can._

He hopes it’s enough.

 

In the hospital, Yuri has his eyes closed. His chest is tight, feels like it’s about to cave in. There are splinters and ice in his lungs. He thinks if he opens his mouth, he might start to cry.

His hands shake even as he raises them: the left like it’s playing chords, the right like it’s drawing a bow. A perfect, soundless accompaniment, because he remembers. He’s listening. And he hears it, all of it.

_(I can hear you.)_

When the last note has petered out, and Yuri can hear the cheers erupt from the audience, can hear JJ shouting, he lets his hands drop to his lap. He looks at the tremors in his fingers, and under the blankets, at his legs that refuse to stand.

“That isn’t fair,” he says to Otabek, to his quiet hospital room. His voice cracks. His cheeks feel damp. The corners of his mouth turn up in a faint, shaky smile. “It’s not fair.”

_(I want to play, for as long as I have left. Every song we can._

_I want to play with you.)_

  


Later, after the performances are over, Otabek extracts himself from a crowd of students and professors and critics, makes his excuses. He finds JJ, who gives him a thumbs up and a big grin. Isabella has her hands pressed to her mouth, eyes damp and shining. Mila throws her arms around him for a tight hug.

“You were amazing,” she says sincerely. Otabek huffs a small laugh.

“Thank you,” she adds, more quietly, sincerely, and Otabek squeezes her in his arms, once.

After a few more congratulations and critiques, he finally escapes the auditorium to change out of his suit and tie. His bike is waiting in the parking lot. The ride to the hospital isn’t too long, but Otabek savors the way the night air calms him down, tempering the adrenaline and the restlessness under his skin.

It’s a little past ten in the evening, so visiting hours are technically over, but the staff recognize him They wave him through with an understanding smile when Otabek says he’ll just be a while.

3103, 3102; Otabek comes to a stop outside room 3101 and takes a deep breath. He hasn’t heard from Yuri since yesterday, not since he’d stopped by to promise he’d deliver a performance that would take Yuri’s breath away. He doesn’t know Yuri’s reaction to hearing him play over the phone, to the sudden change in program. Doesn’t know, can’t guess how Yuri feels right now, after everything.

He knocks on the door twice, staccato beat. His hand doesn’t shake as he opens the door.

The room is quiet but for the faint thrum of machinery; the lights are off except for the lamp in the corner. Yuri’s hair fans out around his head on the hospital-white pillows. He’s asleep, soft breathing and the easy rise-and-fall of his chest. A small smile tugs at the corners of Otabek’s lips.

“Oh, Beka.” The voice is pitched low, careful not to wake the sleeping patient. Nikolai sits up from where he’d been on the couch, rubbing exhaustion from his eyes. “You’re quite late. He fell asleep a while ago. How was your performance?”

“It went great.” Otabek smiles at Yuri’s grandfather. “I guess I’ll have to ask Yuri what he thinks tomorrow.”

“I’m sure he loved it. Mila said you were fantastic.” Nikolai gestures to the only other chair in the room, but Otabek shakes his head. He needs to shower and rest, and he’ll be coming back, anyway.

“I’ll bring something sweet in the morning,” he promises. Nikolai chuckles under his breath.

“Congratulations,” he adds with a fond smile, coming over to clap Otabek on the shoulder. It makes Otabek flush slightly, shuffle his feet. Makes Nikolai laugh again.

“Thank you,” Otabek says, glancing at Yuri one more time. Then with a quiet _good night,_ he slips out the door, exhaustion catching up with him. The sooner he sleeps, the sooner tomorrow comes so he can hear Yuri’s critique, his comments. Ask how it had made Yuri feel. Tell Yuri everything.

  


He never does.

  


Otabek decides to walk to the hospital this time; it’s less than half an hour from his home. On the way he settles on two slices of cake: caramel and strawberry chiffon. A tiny part of the song they’d written is stuck in his head, on loop. Otabek shields his eyes from the morning sunlight as he crosses the road to the hospital. He’s wearing the shirt that Yuri likes.

One of the nurses at the station looks up as he exits the elevator. Otabek’s about to greet her when he registers the expression on her face.

Otabek looks at her, then down the hall, where a familiar figure stands outside a familiar door, with a doctor.

Nikolai is crying.

  


There is something in his chest that feels hollow, like he’s full of empty spaces. Every breath he takes feels like splinters and ice, feels like pulling water into his lungs.

There are two slices of cake in the box he carries.

There are so many things he hasn’t said.

  


The music room is empty.

The piano is quiet.

  


After the funeral, Nikolai comes to find him.

“He left something for you,” he says, smiling softly. Nikolai’s holding out an envelope, creased in one corner, surprisingly bulky. Otabek takes it hesitantly, uncertain.

His name is scrawled on the upper right corner.

He tries to stop his hands from clenching. It might crumple something.

“Thank you,” he says. The words don’t waver. His breaths feel splintered.

Nikolai reaches out, places a hand on Otabek’s arm.

“Thank _you,_ ” he says, voice uneven. The hand on Otabek’s arm is calloused, time-worn, but it grips tight. Otabek can feel it shake, just a little. Nikolai looks at Otabek with so much sincerity and warmth; says, “you made it better for him, these last months.”

Nikola says, “you loved him.”

  


( _Love,_ not loved.

The music stays with him still.)

  


Alone in the parking lot of the cemetery, leaning against his bike, Otabek exhales in tremors and checks inside the envelope. There’s a sheaf of papers, some things scribbled in the margins.

The sun is warm on his shoulders, the back of his neck. The sounds of the city feel muffled. The papers feel light in his hand as he takes them out, no matter that they weigh so much.

He looks at the sheets in his hands.

It’s a music score, handwritten, unfinished. Otabek recognizes the piano piece as the one he’d been working on, the one he’d been playing when Yuri had first chanced on him in the practice room. He doesn’t know when Yuri had made the copy.

The violin accompaniment is still incomplete.

 

There is a note from Yuri, scratchy penmanship on a sheet of torn-out note paper.

 

Otabek closes his eyes, breathes in splinters.

The sun is warm.

 

(He pictures Yuri playing his violin in the middle of their practice room, bright and beautiful. He thinks of plush, pink lips turned up in a smile, and how he’d wanted to kiss them.)

  
  


_I’d like to think whatever force gave me music also brought me to you._

_Thank you for hearing me._

 

_I never did get the chance to tell you what you and your music meant to me._

 

_Keep playing, please._

  


At the back of his mind, Otabek can still hear the quiet notes of a violin.

  


_(As you wish.)_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you for giving this story a chance and sticking with it ❤︎ I really hope it resonated, even just a little. And that it didn't make you want to skin me too badly.
> 
> Come say hi on social media, btw! I'm on Twitter as [@okw_tr](https://twitter.com/okw_tr) and Tumblr as [plstskys](https://plstskys.tumblr.com), and my writing portfolio is over at [angelitawrites](https://angelitawrites.tumblr.com) ^_^ You can find me there talking about more AUs and HCs, and not just from YOI, as well as posting other works.
> 
> Thank you for reading!!


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